My reputation is ruined, and I’m likely to be thought of as an idiot, a nerd, or a combination of the two…

I’m stretching out on a very nerdy limb right now to say this

However, before I loose the OTHER 50%, I’ve written this is for all of you guys that haven’t given Star Trek a chance because you’ve heard of unemployed nerds wearing cheap costumes, shouting made up words in their struggle as social outcasts XD

Before I knew what Star Trek was, the FIRST thing I’d think of were these guys…

At this kind of a place…

With people like this…

And of course this guy…

Before I knew what Star Trek was, I imagined most of the episodes would look something like this…

and this… this just cracks me up

He just looks so HAPPY!

I never really understood what all the hype was about… why would anyone like shows so weird… I always associated it with cliche camera angles, laser guns and cheesy action sequences with overly dramatic taunts from aliens with tentacles or something stupid…

They always took themselves too seriously… I didn’t think much of the plots and dismissed the whole franchise as a lost cause…

Until…. (I know that’s such a cliche thing to say)

Once upon a time… (another cliche)I happened to see an episode, because it HAPPENED to be on… and I ACTUALLY liked it… enough to watch another… and another…

I was really surprised…

These characters weren’t shallow, dark, and aggressive… they were funny, and full of real depth…

It was then that I learned that the show I was watching was “Star Trek: The Next Generation”…

You see, Star Trek isn’t ONE show… it’s actually 5… Each of them with a totally different view on how a show should look and how the characters should act…

They all wear the same uniform (roughly) and speak the same lingo (roughly), but the flavor, the dynamics of the story telling are completely different…

Different cast, different writers, different directors… different shows…

Don’t get me wrong, the clips you saw above ARE Star Trek… just… not the Star Trek I like…

Star Trek “The Next Generation” is by FAR my favorite… It has SOME action, but only when all peaceful solutions are COMPLETELY exhausted… It’s the most character focused of the Star Treks… the majority of the spotlight is on character development, growth and interaction… action sequences are more a MEANS to show the characters in a certain light… In “The Next Generation” The action is like the scenery with the character’s personalities being in focus…

You see, just as the flavor of each series is different, so is the philosophy that governs their actions…

The Philosophy of “The Next Generation” is “Find a peaceful resolution at all costs, even if sacrificing yourself is necessary to undo a mistake”

They don’t go in “guns blazing”… they talk it out… and proceed with caution… Respecting the true implications a wrong choice could have on a planetary scale…

Consider the scenarios…

You come across a foreign vessel that’s being attacked by another foreign vessel, do you defend them?… If so, why?… who’s to say it’s not a criminal fleeing from law enforcement… If not, why? It could be a helpless trader being mugged…

A primitive civilization is dying from a plague, you have the cure, but if you aid them, they may never discover the cure on their own, and now they’ll need your assistance if they encounter a new plague. Now they’re dependent on YOU for survival…

A future version of yourself explains you should alter your path… if you do, will your future self still stand before you, or vanish as a result of the time line alteration?… If they DO vanish, would you even remember they came at all?… after all, what would there be to remember? Might the fact that they came back be an indicator that you did not heed your own warning, or might it be safe to say none of this ever happened in the first place?…

Many of my posts are based on thoughts that started in such shows…

This is Star Trek: The Next Generation

I don’t expect that you will completely understand the clip I’m about to show you… in fact, out of context, I don’t totally understand it myself… but that’s not the point, try to appreciate the chemistry, this group of people have… observe the dynamics, and try to imagine if you DID understand what was going on, and you WERE comfortable with this group of people, if you’d like watching them wrestle with philosophical dilemmas like these…You might be surprised this is the same franchise as the one you’ve seen from above…

(Sorry about the bad audio quality)

Notice how they’re not shooting lasers… there’s no silly alien costumes… (well not much)… and there’s nary a fast paced action music to back up overly dramatic catch lines

If you’d like, try this clip… it shows a great deal into the personality of the Captain of the fictional ship…

BTW, Patrick Stewart is my favorite actor

DO NOT WATCH THE WHOLE CLIP…. I mean… like you COULD, but really only the first 4 minutes apply… if you keep watching it’ll get confusing…

Anyways, to sum this post all up, if you go out and decide you love Star Trek, or completely disregard what I’m saying, it’s all the same by me…

But in my opinion… there’s allot more to it than people let on… at least than society wants people to think there is…

-Paul

PS: If you absolutely MUST watch another clip… this would be the last one I’d show… I don’t want to COMPLETELY overwhelm you…

Well it’s another chapter in the life of a… _________ (fill in the blank)…

I’m a Customer Service Representative at a call center called “Teleperformance”…

Never heard of them?… Well you’ve probably talked to someone that works in one…

It’s funny, I used to think of companies as being a single giant entity, having multiple branches, one of those handled customer support…

But actually the people you talk to when you call for customer support are much more likely in an isolated building nowhere near a corporate facility…

Sure they’re trained by the company, and paid by the company… but that’s about it…

The person you’re talking to when you call Verizon Wireless isn’t an agent at some Verizon Wireless Head Quarters… The agent you’re talking with doesn’t have infinite power, they’re just the guy at the window…

I’m not sure if that all made sense, I’m still getting the hang of it myself… but you might be wondering about other things than the routing process of customer service calls… like why the heck I’m a customer service agent to begin with…

Well I dunno, I was looking for a job, and it’s better than flipping burgers… I don’t want to make a career out of it, but a job, THAT I can make out of it… and I think I’ll do pretty good too…

Anyways, I’ve taken a career assessment test recently, it’s part of a finance option for college…

The only problem, the lady that administered the test didn’t exactly know what she was doing

In one of the tests, she gave us the answer key…

In another one, she made us take it twice cuz she gave the wrong directions…

Anywho, the thing that really upset me was she said at the end (when we hadn’t completed all the tests on time) that it was because of our “limitations”…

Keep in mind, it’ll hurt my likelihood of receiving financial aid if I get a “challenged” review from her…

It’s ridiculous though… she didn’t know how to administer the tests, so we didn’t complete them all…

Besides, if you use logic, as long as we completed the timed tests in the allotted time, the only reason to justify our not completing the remaining tests is because we spent too long in the un-timed assessments… and if they have no time limit, who’s to say we took to long?

I’ve written a thorough documentation of what all happened, and I’ll be turning it in…

But more than what is plainly visible, God is in control, and I have a peace knowing that He has a plan for my life…

So I’ve been thinking of like a funny sketch… I guess it’d be a comedy sketch…

Have you ever had those teachers, professors, or instructors where you REALLY NEED to pass their class, but yet they seem to do everything in their power to hinder your ability to learn?

Think of a slightly edgy older man or woman that mumbles when they talk… they don’t like questions, want very specific answers to very broad questions, and they teach the lessons out of order… To top it all off, the man or woman continually reminds you not to worry, that you’re making it difficult for yourselves, and scolds you for not remembering what was taught before…

See, one concept I don’t think people understand is, just because a person knows how to do something, doesn’t mean they know how to teach it…

For me, learning is allot like constructing a house…

First I need a very broad explanation of EVERYTHING…

We’re talking philosophy… (the blueprints)

I don’t care if it’s blurry and un-detailed… I don’t care if it makes people ask allot of questions, that’s PART of the learning process…

If you spark questions, you’re on the RIGHT track…

I don’t know lots about construction, but I do know that after the blueprint is complete, the first step is laying down the foundation…

Too often I find myself given the ceiling or the window panes before the actual floor is established…

ARRRGH… I can’t use those… and the longer they stay on the ground the more they fade into the distance…

Imagine receiving the middle piece of a pyramid without the bottom row established…

I have to do my best to listen, trying to remember, so that when I CAN understand what they’re telling me, I’ll know where to put it…

Often times I think people don’t realize or remember what it’s like to not actually know how foreign something was when they first were exposed to it…

Sometimes I think people forget what it was like when they first tried to learn what they now know so well…

They become frustrated when people don’t understand what’s so basic to them…

They’ve probably been doing what they’re teaching about for years… it’s like second nature to them… or should be, before they start teaching…

To them, their house is fully constructed…

They keep saying it’s “simple” because to them… it IS simple…

You see, in THEIR mind, they’re simply taking a casual stroll in a familiar house, pointing out the window, and the ceiling, and the door, and the electrical wiring too…

The key is to point it out in the CORRECT order…

They’ll continue saying “You’re making it much harder than you have to”… because to them, they don’t see anything hard!

Oh and my favorite is when I ask them a question and they tell me not to worry because that will be coming in a future lesson…

The reason I was asking is because if I had that piece of the puzzle, I could perhaps mount a piece of the ceiling, or the wall, or the door, or some other analogy…

So you might be wondering, why not just listen to all the pieces in the order I’m given and then assemble the house at the end…

Do you have any idea how hard it is to remember something you can’t understand?…

It’s like 20 bagillion times harder than remembering something you do…

Compare these two images…

Lets take a recipe first… sure it might take a while to memorize, and it might be difficult to remember ALL the specifics, but after a glance you might remember a few ingredients and perhaps a quantity or two…

A Picture like THIS however would be quite difficult to remember…

…. ok….. maybe I should have upped the difficulty on the math problem…

More like this…

How do you remember something like THAT?

Which one, if you were to come to later would make more sense?… which one would have the greater chance for long term memory?…

Don’t be smart with me … I say that cuz I’d prolly say some wise crack to that…

But really… my point is the ORDER in which you teach someone something is CRUCIAL…

They HAVE to start with the bottom and work up… they shouldn’t just give people random pieces at random times not allowing questions and expecting everyone to understand what they do…

On a much brighter note, I feel REALLY happy right now, which is actually the reason I’m writing…

I’m also writing about 4 times as fast as I normally do… that could be the caffeine though… XD

And this is the time when I decided to write about Star Trek yay…

two posts in a night… wow… I was feeling good…

-Paul

Do I SHARE the emotions of those around me, or just UNDERSTAND them?

I wish I could say I felt what others did, that my emotions were a reflection of who’s around me, but honestly my emotions are much more isolated…

When someone feels sad, I only remember what being sad was like…

It’s strange though… The closer I am to someone, the less I’ll share their feelings…

It’s like proximity has an adverse effect on my ability to empathize…

When someone cries, I don’t share their sorrow. I only….. watch

But when I see “Edward Scissor hands” I feel a great deal of emotion… because I relate

In general, when I relate with the main theme or character of a movie or song, I feel intense emotion…

Raw emotion is difficult for me to appreciate…

For me, emotion in it’s raw form is naked

It needs to be “clothed” in an art form from which to be interpreted

Movies… Music… Art… Poetry… Writing…

(Really any artistic expression…)

But when I’m exposed to the raw emotion. Simply a person expressing their sadness to me… I feel put on stage…

When I watch a movie, or listen to a song, I’m not on stage. There’s no pressure to respond, I’m given space, there’s no time limit or consequence for my response. I can respond whenever and however I wish with no repercussions.

But when someone expresses an emotion in real life, there’s no time to reflect, no time to analyze… just an INSTANT need for response… The immediacy makes me tense up and actually inhibits my ability to feel much of anything…

When my feelings fail, I fall back on logic…

When this happens, I try to figure how I’m SUPPOSED to feel… using logic and memory of similar scenarios…

This isn’t to say I never feel for people in real life… because I do… it’s just rarely in the moment… it’s usually when I’m looking back, after given the chance to reflect…

The only time I might share emotions in the moment, is with someone I trust deeply and feel a pretty deep bond with…

Often I’ll continue discussions that have long ended in my head after reflecting. At times it can be frustrating that nobody likes to reengage them… though I still do anyways sometimes

Well, for anyone who still reads this blog, I’m very sorry, I know I’ve not written in a terribly long time

The thing is, there’s been all these thoughts I’ve wanted to put into writing, but I’ve never gotten around to it because I’ve been in the wrong mood…

I had, and lost a job at Target since my last post, that was interesting… I’ll never look at Department Stores the same…

I’m now pursuing college, and there’s been an unofficial job offer from a member of our church for a computer repair company…

Things are looking up, but that still leaves me once again without a job

Sometimes I wonder if things will get better… actually I wonder that allot…

Well at least I’m getting out more

I’ve started hanging out with some christian friends from church

I shall write again some time
-Paul

Have you ever felt lost in time?

Sometimes I watch movies that make me feel… eternal

Movies that capture an entire lifetime’s events in a feature film’s length…

Bicentenial Man, Time Travelers Wife, The Family Man, It’s a Wonderful Life…

They dislodge my internal clock…

And I love the feeling…

For a short time I feel like an old man, a young boy, and the present young man simultaneously…

Usually I feel independent of who I was and will be…

But when I’m in THIS mood, I feel like I always HAVE and always WILL be the same person I am NOW…

My soul makes me who I am, and it will never change… I may grow and develop, but I’ll always be me…

The world we see is simply a snapshot of time…

A single point along the infinite line of immortality

Sometimes I think we restrict our thoughts by time…

For instance… have you ever prayed for something that already happened?

I started thinking “Hey, This is back when I lived in McAllen, before I’m old”… “when I’m between jobs, heading for college”…

It’s almost like my life is a movie I’ve seen over and over and right now is the middle…

So I realize that very little matters except how I plan for the future… I realize how little it matters if I’m happy right now…

And I’m excited about the future…

Most of the time I feel like I’m not living IN the moment…

But when I focus on how brief life is, for some reason, it frees me to do just that

For me, the only way to live in the present, is to connect with the future and the past… and separate from time…

When I see the big picture, I finally can appreciate the details that make life wonderful… I realize that this body is a shell and the world is an illusion, or as CS Lewis puts it “Shadowlands”…

When I realize that a person’s soul, and the spiritual realm are the only true constants, I feel very secure and very safe… like nothing in this world matters…

Though everything in our physical reality will be destroyed… I will not, and I feel fulfilled

life is rose colored…

That by looking at the frailty of our existence and recognizing how temporary this existence is, it’s almost like I begin to break free of the illusion…

I feel like I just caught a magician when he’s doing a trick, and he’s temporarily lost my attention…

I start to doubt the magician’s validity… and I start to ask questions

The charade of life looks like a game… and the veil shakes against my eyelids as if I’m Neo waking up to the true reality…

The Matrix totally gives me this feeling as well…

I see myself being born and dying, being married and my first child born, my first day of school and the last day I’ll ever work…

I suddenly have the desire to call everyone I know and tell them how much they’ve meant to me before it’s too late…

I want to call my parents and tell them how much I love them…

And then it feels strange when I call my mom or dad, and they’re as young as they are… or as old as they are…

I remind myself I’m young too, and there’s really no reason to worry quite now about my parents dying…

When I see films that capture a full life in a matter of hours, it makes me remember how temporary our life is, and instead of viewing life in a earthly lifespan, I begin to view things from a more eternal perspective… the true nature of our existence…

Instead of thinking hey, I’m 21… About 25% of my life is over…

I think to myself I’m 21… About 75% more life till my body expires…

It’s like a car that racks up enough miles… like everything else in this world your body will break down eventually…

You know, in the first star wars movie, I always wondered why they didn’t make the little fighter space crafts remote controlled…

It bothered me so much that people were actually dying when they obviously had the technology to control the fighter crafts from a secure location…

When I start to see past the illusion, I see that this body is being remote controlled and that when it dies… I won’t go down with it…

I’m safe…

Thanks for reading
-Paul

PS:

Here’s a really stupid thought for you, but hey, it’ll make you laugh…

Ok, so according to Einstein’s theory of relativity, when a person (if a person could) travel at the speed of light, would travel through time…

Well the theory also states that the closer you come TO light speed, the faster time travels…

In other words if you didn’t make it QUITE to light speed, you’d still be traveling through time…

So, I started thinking… ANY time a person moves, they travel through time…

A negligible amount of course… but still you travel through time EVERYTIME you move.

Ok, and granted that the earth is spinning so I guess that means everyone EVERYWHERE is ALWAYS moving through time…

:O

Maybe that’s why we MOVE through time!

Because the earth spins!

GASP…

And even when we’ve launched people out of orbit, they’re still caught in the cycle of the solar system, and that’s caught in the cycle of the galaxy, and that’s caught in the cycle of the universe…

So…. anyways… my point was…

Everyone knows that people that jog often and frequently live longer lives…

Most would say that’s because they’re healthy and yada yada…

But perhaps the reason why people that jog allot live longer, is because they’re actually traveling through time!

So ACTUALLY they’re NOT living longer lives…

It’s just the world is traveling faster than they are…

So yeah…

I’m thinking of writing a book on my new theory…

YEP…

But you laughed, or should have…

It’s strange you know, how quiet people (like me) in the RIGHT situation, aren’t very quiet at all…

I’m not even sure there ARE quiet people… I think it’s much more likely that the “louder” people are only “loud” because the conversation is engaging to them…

Most everyone stays quiet when the topic is something they find uninteresting…

You’ve heard that when a person looses a sense, the others grow stronger, right?…

That a blind man has among the best hearing… or a person who’s deaf is more visually observant…

Well… what if personality preferences act the same way?…

That a person who lacks organization, becomes flexible and innovative to function when under pressure…

That people with their head in the clouds learn how to solve abstract puzzles and connect the pieces in their mind

That people who find it difficult interacting with others are likely to be more introspective

That those without strong logic skills are forced to rely on their gut… or those without a strong gut instinct are forced to rely on logic…

Perhaps our weaknesses are as much to blame as our strengths in shaping who we are as a person…

Some people regard the imagination as childish… that by engaging in thoughts and discussions of philosophy, without practical application, that you’re not behaving “adultlike”…

According to the Myers Briggs, everyone has personality preferences to one side or the other. Just like one might favor the right hand rather than the left, ONE of the preferences matures into its full grown “Adult” form, while the OTHER is left in a more or less “child like” state.

Now granted, there are degrees to how STRONGLY you favor one side or the other, and that will obviously effect the severity of your imbalance…

However, we all favor one side more than the other… and as such, one will surpass the others development

Maybe that’s why some people think imagination is childish. Perhaps in THEIR mind… their imagination IS childlike… having never developed… and thus when they see someone (like me)
relying so heavily on preferences that are underdeveloped for them… they assume I only do so because I’m immature…

In reality the strengths that they posses may always be immature for me…

<<And Vice-Versa>>

I have a fear that things won’t get better, that I’ll be 30, then 35 and 40… and I’ll still be searching, no more than surviving, still wondering where I fit in…

I mean… there are people’s lives that end like that, right?

What if that’s me?

Not everyone gets a family

Not everyone gets a job that’s fulfilling…

Sometimes life feels like a broken record

The same cycle of “fantastic start”… then fail…

I wouldn’t say I haven’t grown as a person

But what if I took the wrong path?…

What if I sabotaged myself too far?…

Do you ever feel unlovable?

You see the monster inside you cant rid yourself of…

You see the ugly… you see the darkness… and it shames you…

I feel like a marionette with limp strings, without love…

I fall to the floor

It sucks my breath right out, and a pain starts beneath my gut…

There’s a war going on, an invisible war of divine proportions, more than simply good against bad… but good against evil… where there’s struggle, there’s purpose… with anyone, anywhere…

I wish we could unite…

Alone we’re outnumbered, but… together we function as a body, as a single entity…

But I tend to avoid taking on positions of leadership…

I’d much rather be the bothersome person in the background brainstorming ideas… providing the leader with suggestions to help solve problems…

But when I actually AM the leader, it means that someone else gets to be the person giving me suggestions on how I’m doing things wrong… and I start to appreciate the burden that leaders must deal with

I start to feel bad for “sticking it to the man” feeling something like the man myself…

I’m always left with the fear that when I’m left in charge, the power will go to my head, and my attempts to control will squeeze the life out of the team. In the end I’ll feel discouraged, and see my failure as further evidence for why I make a poor leader…

Despite all this, two days ago (on Sunday) I volunteered myself for a leadership role…

Our Church has a college class. Last Sunday our teacher asked if we had suggestions for outreach in our community.

The idea came to me just as he asked… I suggested that we visit some of the places I’d been while working at the Valley AIDS Council…

Parks during the day, and some open-door “day bars” would be perfectly fine…

I suggested we assemble hygiene packs combined with essential food items and talk with the homeless around town

Just after I made my suggestion, he asked the group which of us would be willing to be in charge of our outreach projects…

……

I felt like I was supposed to say I would… so I did…

Before I said it, while I said it, and now after I said it, I have mixed feeling toward taking a leadership role in the group…

I’m creative, I’m innovative, I’m flexible and intuitive… but I’m NOT organized nor am I good with setting dates and coordinating activities…

But… I felt like I was supposed to say I would…

So I did…

Ok… my job… the one at the Valley AIDS Council…

They had to let me go…

As of last week, I’m unemployed…

But I’m ok with that…

I feel at peace, almost like load has been lifted…

It really wasn’t an easy job for me…

But I assume that’s probably why God wanted me there in the first place…

I’ve developed a comfort level in social situations that many Christians don’t have…

I feel I have more the capacity to love others regardless of their history or sexual orientation…

And for that, I see what I gained as invaluable…

As I try to decide where to go next… I thought of continuing in the field of HIV/AIDS Outreach, but I feel strongly that God doesn’t want me to…

Which really bums me on the one hand because I’ve already been through many of the training courses that are required… so getting another outreach job would be much easier than getting the one I had…

But as I say, I don’t feel God wants me to…

I feel He wants me to take a step in faith, and He’ll either work with the step I take, or He’ll show me another path… either way I feel He wants me to move forward…

And right now I feel that means college…

I put it on hold when I took the job for the Valley AIDS Council, but I feel it’s time to get back… and full time…

So… right now, my first priority is college…

I’m planning to start beginning of next year…

So now I’m seeking help from my dad for all the lovely paperwork.

See, I can survive for a couple months without a job…

But the moment I get a job, if I don’t already know that I’m set for college, it won’t happen…

It’s been a reoccurring pattern to promise myself I’ll work and go to school after I’m comfortable at my job…

But that never happens… I very easily see myself settling into whatever job I get, and have second thoughts about pursuing college

It’s been a pattern, I want to break it, it’s time to break it…

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result…

I’m sure I’m still insane… lol… but I try to be as little as possible… it’s one of those old habits I guess :p

People talk so casually about getting temporary jobs just to pay the bills…

They talk as if you walk “somewhere” and do “something” for a few hours and then go home…

When I get a job… Every job I’ve had leaves an imprint on me… it’s like a chapter… almost like another realm of existence…

There’s new people, new schedules, new drama, new lingo, and new work to learn and train and perfect…

Did I mention new drama?

IDK… maybe I’m just super sentimental, but I don’t just go through jobs like rolls of toilet paper…

They’re like pieces of me…

After every job, I ALWAYS take something with me… like a name tag or a manual… just so I remember who I WAS…

Anyways… right now, I’m focusing on college preparations… and very quickly after I’ll get a job to hold me off till next year…

Think of it this way,
Along as I set things up for next year… And I don’t DIE… I’ll be good, right?

Thnx for reading,
-Paul

PS: Perhaps those with heads in the CLOUDS can see much more of the ground BELOW…

“Bittersweet”

What does the word mean to you?

The beauty in brokenness…

The shadow behind the rose…

A long distance relationship with the love of your life… or the guilty feeling after you inherit a large sum of money…

It’s the voice that never quits reminding you what you did wrong… even in the happiest of occasions

Bittersweet is a feeling I find myself feeling more and more as I grow older…

The days aren’t quite as bright as they once were…

And even the nights have an eerie glow all their own…

Happiness short lived…

And what took Santa’s place is a pile of stuff in brightly packaged material…

I look forward to vacations like they were finishing lines…

“If only I can MAKE it… then things’ll sort themselves out after…”

Well I’m halfway through a vacation right now… and I haven’t stopped thinking about what I’m going to do when I return…

We’re in Gulf Shores, Alabama…

Not that the city means allot to you guys… just know it’s in the far south…

Our family has a reunion in a beach house, on the ocean front, every year since I was born…

Well ALMOST… cuz… a few years I was in Kenya… but that’s another story…

I enjoy the beach…

But I like it even more at night… when everyone else is asleep…

The other night I went outside, it was a full moon, and the sand was literally glowing… the water had a cinematic quality as it shimmered soft moon beams against the waves

The wind was mild, and clouds would periodically dim the moonlight as they were carried by…

I just sat out there… alone… staring at the water… hearing the crash of waves ahead…

My hands idly playing with the cold sand as I sat to reflect upon myself…

I guess bittersweet is the longing for things to be different, but the acceptance that there’s nothing you can do to fix that…

It’s feeling shame when you should be feeling joy

or maybe it’s feeling both…

Bittersweet is the echo you hear from someone your heart used to belong to…

Bittersweet is the reminder that you’re not where your heart is…

(Pause)

Have you ever done something you’re ashamed of?… and the moment you walk out into the light…. around family and friends….. you feel a need to hide your head… as if your sin will be discovered if they just see your face…

I find myself checking my hair…. as if somehow it will reveal that I’m guilty or bad…

Have you ever found it hard to talk in such a situation?

Your mouth gets all numb and your vocabulary shrinks to that of a fifth grader’s…

You can’t think straight… you can’t express yourself… and most of all you can’t stop thinking about yourself…

When this happens… I find it especially hard to engage in conversation with others… being so self absorbed and limited in expression… I usually feel isolated and end up staring off into space…

Sounds awkward… right?…

… feels awkward too…

Thanks for reading
-Paul

PS: No, the two topics of feeling ashamed and bittersweet were not intended to be linked or to pertain to the other

PSS: Obviously I’ve not kept up on the same daily blog I did a while ago… all I can say is sorry… I’d make a commitment to change… but being realistic I’m not sure I’d hold to it…

Well, it’s late, and I totally should be going to bed… I have to wake up in just over 7 hours…

HOWEVER…

I just got back from one of the MOST memorable evenings of my young adulthood… and I just HAVE to write about it before the vibe fades…

So…

I’m in San Antonio this week… our organization payed for us to stay at a hotel… and we’ve been going to meetings from 8:30 to 5:00, Monday through today (Thursday)…

ANYWAYS…

I’ve been feeling rather trapped, being that I rely on my coworker for transportation…

And unfortunately they don’t share my enthusiasm for cultural taste testing… as a result I’ve been left to daydream of exploring a foreign city while going nowhere day after day after day…

Very frustrating…

Well anywho… today my curiosity FINALLY got the best of me, I decided to take the plunge and do something unpredictable…

I called a taxi, and decided to ride out to a contemporary art museum all the way across town…

I’ll be honest, the fare was crazy!…

But it was worth it all…

When I got there I started taking pictures with the disposable camera I’d bought…

(I hope to post them once they’re developed)…

Turns out I wasn’t just at a contemporary art museum… I was in the very HEART of the contemporary art district of San Antonio!…

It was absolute euphoria…

In addition to the art museum I’d come to see originally… they had many other art galleries… many of which were located in people’s apartments!…

In and out I went from one bizarre exhibit to another…

Now…

There was one room…

It simply said “The Most Horrible Room”…

And only ONE person was allowed to go into the room at a time…

So yes, there was a line… which I waited patiently to go in…

When I did… I was overcome by foul smell… and then spiderwebs… or so it felt like began to pull over my face… (the room was very dark)

A strobe light began to flash at me, as a white noise machine made a static grind…

I’m not sure how to describe this experience…

But after I left… had a heightened surreal vibe and everything looked slightly starry…

And for that I truly enjoyed the peculiar little “horrible” room…

Not so much for the “horrible-ness” of actually BEING in the room… but for the change in perspective I felt once I left…

I think that’s a great metaphor for the way life is at times… we often will place ourselves, or at least ALLOW ourselves to be PLACED (or at least I do) in situations that truly aren’t all that pleasant in the moment… Simply because we have a faith that WHEN we leave we’ll take something with us… something grounded into our core as fundamentally sound… a piece of our identity that’s been uncovered…

But back to the story…

I went downstairs in a complex… and found a little coffee shop…

There were wonderful paintings on the walls… all of which felt so natural and sentimental, I fell in love and wished I could live here… somewhere close by… good healthy vibes resonated and swelled here… I felt ever so slightly at home…

The girl that sold me coffee told me about an open night that evening where they would be reading poetry…

It’s at this point I decided I’d spend the REST of the day here… only to go back when EVERYWHERE was closed…

…and so I DID!

I walked all up and down the nearby paths across stepping stones… leading to some abandoned factories that wreaked of mischief…

I don’t know why but I just had a bad feeling about them that made me want to look inside…

lol… that’s probably the mentality of a guy that’s going to get mugged…

ANYWHO… after I got back, I stepped in to buy another latte… and noticed a gathering of of people near an amplifier with a mic…

Their poetry reading had begun, and I took a seat towards the rear to listen intently…

The sensation… in a word… validating…

I think my favorite poem was one by an elderly lady about love…

She described the experience of two people in a romantic encounter… focusing on the physical sensations in great detail… fingers touching… cheeks brushing… how emotionally invested they were in each other…

She ended the poem by telling us that: You’re pulled back to reality… waking up from your dream as you find yourself alone again.. Alone in a large empty room…

Or something like that…

It was really captivating…

I know I should stop saying all these wonderful things about it, but I just feel so energized by my day…

Anyway… I stumbled from gallery to gallery searching for a mirror, something to reflect back how I felt or something that would expose a piece of myself that I had not previously been aware of…

Eventually I found myself in a small shop filled with a colorful mess of artifacts…

They had an assortment of books out and I casually began looking through them…

Not that I am a terribly big reader… but such an inexpensive thing as a book… in such a surreal environment will have a sentimental touch that makes it personable at a level some may not understand…

As I went in, the two ladies excused themselves saying “Ohh… come in, feel free to browse, but please excuse the mess”…

I told them that I loved the clutter, stating that it gave it a random clarity… (or something like that)…

Anywho… they had pictures of many different spiritual symbols…

They had Buddhist influences, and if I’m not mistaken some Aura symbols (not sure what, if any religion to associate that with)… it all was a very mystically artistic shop filled with colorful cloths and peculiar sculptures…

I asked them about the books, and gave a broad overview of who I was and what I might be interested in…

When I did, one of the ladies dashed to a bookcase and said “I know a book that will be PERFECT for you”…

A few minutes later she gave me a book called “The five wisdom energies”…

It approaches psychological personality analytics from a Buddhist perspective…

And although I’m not sure I’m going to believe what the book says… it’s focus is not on it’s religion as much as on psychology… referencing a religion that very well may be true… though I believe it not to be…

I’m a very strong believer that the more you close your eyes the less light gets through…

Observing other beliefs… studying them… even attending gatherings of other religions… does NOT (I believe) place you at risk of falling prey to outside influences…

In all reality it’s the closing of your eyes that might narrow your understanding…

If I’m going to eat chicken, and say it’s the best dang thing on the planet, I don’t want to be doing it because I just haven’t TASTED anything else, therefor it’s good because it’s all I know…

I believe my faith is deeper than that and if I like chicken, then I’ll STILL like chicken even IF I taste pork and beef and fish and anything else…

Ok… not ANYTHING… but… you get what I mean…

I’m 21… not 13… and not 31… give me time to feel around a bit…

Before I go on, no I’m not Buddhist, I’m Christian… and no, I’m not STUDYING Buddhism… it’s just if somebody wants to write a book about psychology, I’m not going to turn it down just because they say it’s a “Buddhist Way” of understanding Personalities, Emotions, and Relationships…………… not at FIRST anyway…. in a week it might be total garbage to me…

Who knows…

I truly hope I haven’t offended anyone…

Religion is like a more concentrated dose of stigma than you’d receive from talking about Republicans and Democrats… you say the wrong thing and SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE is going to think you’re a “devil child”…

lol…

Pssssh… As if…

They should make the term “Religiously correct”, just like they have “Politically Correct”, don’t you think?

ANYWAY back to the story….

One of the ladies left after a while, and I decided to stay and continue a very interesting conversation I was having with the lady who decided to stay…

She apparently was a friend of the one who left <– who happened to be the owner, but lacked the organization that the woman who stayed and chatted with me clearly had…

I spent my time helping her organize the owner’s artifacts…

Shaking off tydy table cloths, cleaning mirrors, hanging paintings on the walls…

All in all compeltely reorganizing the clutter in an asthetically pleasing (if still slightly random) collection of photographs and metaphorical paintings…

For hours and hours we cleaned and talked, no one else came in, much to my delight, as it allowed for a much more in depth environment…

APPARENTLY I’m not the only one who’ll open up to a complete stranger… because we had a much deeper conversation after knowing eachother for five minutes than I EVER had working as a waiter for a FULL YEAR!

It’s just so nice when you get to meet someone with a like minded personality… and so comforting when you finally feel understood and validated by them as another human being…

We talked about everything from auras to enneagrams, from French films to abstract dream interpretations, and even touched on narcasistic tendencies that most either deny, or supress, or flat out never admit…

I just love when I meet someone who’s ready to trust me as much as I’m ready to trust them…

Today I found that…

And this day DEFINETELY earns a gold star sticker for surreal moments of year 21 of my nonlinear life…

In the end, the lady I helped drove me ALL the way back to my hotel, I thanked her and gave her something to help with the gas…

We exchanged email adresses and the owner of the store is going to email me photographs of the newly organized gallery… which I will DEFINETELY be posting on this site…

So…

The MORAL of this story…

If you’re in a foreign city…

EXPERIENCE it…

Go GOOGLE the art disterict… and take a taxi, take a bus, take a train for all I care, find a way to get to the places that you’re interested in, because after you leave, and you’re back at home, the memories will shine like GOLD…

Remember…

The LESS you were planning on doing something…

The MORE surreal it is…

The more spontanious and completely UNPREDICTED something ends up being the more memorable, the more fantastic… and the more you’ll see life through rose colored glasses when reality sinks in again…

…or do as I do and never FULLY wake up…

Really, a GREAT day today…

Thanks so much for reading

PS: and now I’ve got 5 hours for sleep…
ZZZZzzzzz…

-Paul

There’s an HIV Outreach conference in a hotel, they’ve got me in a room, where I’m going to meetings all day…

I know I need to get a grip, but there’s something about rooming with your coworkers that makes me nervous, it’s like being on the clock 24/7, I never really get a chance to unwind… I wake up on pins and needles, I go to sleep on pins and needles… and it’s wearing my nerves thin…

You know that really crappy feeling when you feel your finally exposing your ugly side, and everybody goes “Ewww… What was that?”

I think that’s called shame, or regret, maybe I’m feeling angry at myself

Yeah, that’s me, now…

I’m stepping on peoples feet and they have no idea why…

I’m hoping that writing will help ease some tension, but my confidence in this succeeding is marginal at best…

I feel like my life is an episode of the office… or to be more accurate, survivor…

Whoever thought up the show was a genius… reality TV shows in general I suppose…

They have this… “exposing”… nature about them…

Problem is, I don’t really want to play the game, or expose my ugly sides to others, I just want the money…

Why is everyone so competitive anyways… it all seems so… IDK… primitive…

Bear A sees bear B, they fight, Bear A gets killed or badly injured Bear B wins victorious… Hurrah… until Bear B gets old and then Bear C kills that bear… double hurrah… until that bear C gets old… and then don’t even get me started about Bear D, let me tell you….. yada yada yada

It just seems so monotonous…

Like the circle of life… except… without the simba part…

But seriously…

Beating someone who’s already running, is allot less challenging than choosing the direction to run on your own

Anyways, meetings are about to start again, time to go attempt to mask my feelings of inadequacy for emotions of a business-like confidence…

I’m not fooling anyone…
-Paul

PS: Still pushing away those I’d like to get to know, and pulling in the ones I don’t particularly want to speak with… why is that?

Have you ever tried picturing what you look like?

A mirror only tells you so much…

The process of subtracting the constant narration is nearly impossible…

It’s like trying to look down at your own nose

You know it’s there, you just can’t make it out…

If only I could take a good look at myself from a third person perspective…

I worry I wouldn’t like what I’d see…

Though… it’d be so much easier to see what’s wrong with the engine if you could look under your own hood…

I could see who I really am, and who I’m not, where I belong, or where I don’t…

Unfortunately my self perception is rather blurry…

Some days it’s rose colored, others it’s grotesque

I see out through slits in a cave…

I only wonder what the cave looks like from the outside…

People tell me I have trouble making friends because I don’t give them a chance…

So I tried to imagine…

If I were to be someone else… and I wanted to be my friend… how would I do it?

what would I say… what would I do…

And I came to realization that it would be QUITE difficult to become my own friend…

I look for people who retain the innocents of their youth… but matured enough to not be shocked by brutality and unkindness

People that feel alienated by society, and search for meaningful deep relationships…

I guess when you’re kids you find those people, cause as an adult, I haven’t had much luck…

It’s a desert out there…

If the people I’m looking for still exist, they must be in hiding…

Probably in the same cave I’m in… it’s just so dark we can’t see each other…

-Paul

The kind of heat that gets into your head and starts shutting down crucial mental faculties…

If you don’t find relief, it just keeps building, and building, and building… until it’s drained everything out of you…

Anyways…

Have you ever found yourself unavoidably putting your foot in your mouth right after you dismiss the only person qualified to help you?

It’s like God is waiting until the MOMENT you finally loose your cool with someone to present you with a task in which you desperately need their assistance…

Let me ask you something… what are you supposed to do when others are saying stuff or showing you stuff you’d really rather not see?

If you ask them to stop, it’s totally your right, but at the same time you may come across as “Holier than thou”…

It’s frustrating…

Anywho, I’m sorry, but it’s late and my fingers are hurting when I type I’m so tired… as I said today was brutaly hot…

-Paul