interesting as life can be…unhappy as people get…elated as the opposite makes…interested as can be…scared in love…destroyed by the words never spoken…the look that killed…the hand that froze…the touch that healed…the hug that told a story…times past…here now…free speak speech…total communication…blabbering idiot…story told backwards…misinterpretation is the key…ban censorship…explain the mush…focus on the emotion of the moment…capture the feelings…work it out…physically emotive…trembling stomach…scared in love…in love?...in love
Currently listening:
Where You Want To Be
By Taking Back Sunday
Release date: 27 July, 2004
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
...on life (ported from myspace)
life is just one of those things...i'm not sure that anyone ever really figures life out...it's more like life figures us out...that sounds way too much like a predestination theorist. I'm not sure what I really want out of life yet. It seems like whenever I'm on a high...whether that be a new sport, a new girl, a new toy, or a new best friend...there are very few things in life that are actually a good return on the investment. The initial investment is usually the same..the new thing, lets call it a trobblee...well, that trobblee is the best thing in life. you get out of work, after thinking about the new trobblee all day...speed on home to your new love...the trobblee. upon arriving, you run upstairs and pick up your new trobblee...your hera bursting with excitement about all of the time you get to spend with your new trobblee. at this point, the trobblee is perfect. it is a rare occasion when something...anything in this world is perfect, but in that first day or two, there is nothing that can come between you and the trobblee. even if physically seperated, your minds...deeper...your souls...deeper...your entire beings are connected. there is a sense that you cannot live without your precious trobblee. that day, after work, you polish your trobblee...cleaning off the seven particles of dust that have settled on it over the course of the day. the trobblee is everything to you today...life is good. anyhow...that night, you have trouble sleeping. you spent all day with your new trobblee...basking in it's wholesome goodness....slathering on the thick layers of over-emphatic emotion. your thoughts are only of the next day, when you wake and see your new trobblee. after hours of tossing and turning (with a few intermitten episodes of turning the light on, just so you can catch one last glimpse of your precious trobblee), you are finally put under by the dark comfort that is sleep. you do not remember your dreams the next morning, but the first thought that pops into your head is your new trobblee. with the slight overlap of the waking and the dead, you insert the troblee into your dreams, though there were none to be had. you had imagined all of the good times that you would spend in the next lifetime together, for who, once having had, would be without trobblee ever again? the excitement is not as intense, as the emotion is overcome by the imminence of the day's work. you smile at your trobblee with that...I will always be yours...morning after smile. with that, you leave the haus [Kt ;)] and head off to another day's work. your thoughts are mostly of the trobblee...and you are still anxious for the work day to pass (not too different from any other non-trobblee day) and your thoughts do hover around that of the trobblee. Having said that...it is all too apparent that the notion of the trobblee's everlasting prescence in your life is but a fleeting sensation. not to say that all emotions are as fleeting as the one briefly touched upon above, but (BUT!!)...it does seem that there is a pattern in life. Great things come...and...somehow...life takes it's toll. Whether that be the every day 9-5 grind...or the struggles of a single parent, life tends to wear one away. Methinks this is a US thang. Not that there arent plenty of others throughout the world that suffer similarly, but that we, as americans have been raised to think that having your dearest trobblee is that for which we should strive...0-99, with occasional breaks at 15,33 and 52 for retrospection. i'm not saying that trobblees can't be the best thing in the world...for there ARE those moments when your lil trobblee is the best. There is nothing that you wouldnt trade your trobblee for. there are very few things in life that actually have a lasting impact on us. who cares about the negative impacts...in the end...they are only going to bring you down if you linger on them. it is completely necessary to have good friends that you are able to discuss them with, however, in order to put them into perspective. This allows one to grow from mistakes, which are really just life's learning opportunities. they are paintful, but when you are at your lowest, or most teary eyed of times...you are exposing who you really are. skirting that aside midway, we pass right on to the lasting affects that can be had upon us. people are probably the most obvious of all the lasting impacts. This leads one to believe that an actual person can somehow affect another's life to the extent that the latter's life will be altered forever. There are very few people in this world that are actually worth listening to, let alone worth taking the time to learn from. i'm not sure that it's the person that actually affectts us the most. it seems that reaction is the most powerful of tools when it comes to dealing with those other people. If someone tells me that i'm ugly...i can react to that in a few different ways. if i choose to get mad, the other person might have achieved what they were looking for..to irritate me. that is something that I can fairly easily control. if I choose to react to that comment with a laugh....this may confuse the other person...it may make the person a little confused...or it may just encourage the person to take to the offensive with the verbal abuse. Anyhow....i feel that the reaction is the most powerful thing to learn to control. This gives you fairly direct control over the entire mood/direction/outcome of any conversation. Who is to say that one well timed smile or a laugh at a key moment might just make that person your best friend that much sooner? I fully believe in this. Anyhow...this whole conversation has indeed turned into another brain spillage...onto the electrons that are my viewsonic professional series p220f monitor...yes yes...so the real intent of this discussion was to get at the root of human motivation. what motivates you? are you driven by something external...trobblee...or something internal. I have found that when being driven primarily by an external force, especially if that force takes on a new life in the very mind that discovered it, the effects of the external force increase dramatically. it is only when we can reach into ourselves and pull ourselves up to a new level, at which, trobblees are mere supplements to our already elevated existance. I'm not trying to reach a new spiritual level with this...just on a personal growth level. why would you want to live your life with complete dependence on something/somone else? not that that is always bad...for that IS what we search for the most...but that it can be a bad thing and can lead to you keeping yourself at a lower level than you should really have to be at. muah!
Currently listening:
Franz Ferdinand
By Franz Ferdinand
Release date: 20 April, 2004
Currently listening:
Franz Ferdinand
By Franz Ferdinand
Release date: 20 April, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Roadtrip blatherings... (ported from myspace)
Copied straight (no editing) from my roadtrip laptop journal...
This copy of word is licensed to robbie williams…probably the brit pop singer. Haha what a joke. Anyhow, I’m sitting up here darn near mount st Helens and I have no place to sleep. Its 1215am…I’m half wired on monster energy drinks and the other half dead tired from driving ALL day. I started today in…er….umm…somewhere a little north of redding…I think. It all starts to run together after awhile. So yeah. I went to crater lake national park today, that was hot! There were great views all across the park, both of the lake and the surrounding volcanoes and whatnots. Oregon was growing on me, but I don’t know what to think for real, seeing as how I was only there for less than 12hrs. Whatever. I would have kept on driving tonight, but for the fact that I know that I’m practically sitting on top of MSH and it would just kill me to be this close and not to see it. LoL…I think I’m going to try to hit Mt Rainier National Park tomorrow. I’ll bet that that park is pretty much that one mountain…but it’s usually snow capped and symmetrical, so it should make for some good photos. It’s also a National Park, so I could check that one off the list. One of these days, I’m going to have to do some of the cool national parks for real instead of just pulling these day trip drive through run the trail snap the pics in n out deals…haha. So tomorrow, I will probably just kick it here for a bit, then roll on up the the aforementioned NP…maybe hit seattle later in the day. Seattle is only 120 or so miles from here, so it shouldn’t be a chore at all to make it there tomorrow. Canada is something like 150 miles north of Seattle, so that will be an interesting skip hop jump. I love this trip…I think. J I’m without direction for the most part…just following the road signs that point to items of interest. Gawd I’m indecisive tonight…I kinda screwed myself by getting here so late, though. I could have crashed behind a supermarket or something back in St Helen (city in Oregon on the way up to Washington) oh well. C’est la vie, ja? WHAT THE FUCK!! Figure your shit out kyle. On the bright side…the other campground will be opening up in 6.5hrs…yay. I wonder if I can keep this up for that much longer…um…nah. It has been ten minutes and I’m already babbling like a buffoon. This laptop isn’t half bad to type on. I guess the short distance that y’have to push for the keys to respond makes up for the lame ass setup…too small of a board…yeah, that’s about it. Wow…a few guys at a site next to me threw some road flares in the firepit to get it started and its flaming up huge pink right now. Drinking at the same time…gawd people are smart. …but I’m the one sitting here not sure if I should be here or not, right? Its funny how it would be easier for me to find a place to park and sleep in a “city” vs out here in the absolute middle of no where. Ah…I will drive back to the fwy and find a gas station to sleep behind. I wonder what someone would do if they found me randomly sleeping behind their building? Probably just give me the …sucks to be you look and move on. Dunno. Hey…I think this trip epitomizes my life right now. Without detailed direction, just going through the motions. I go to work, save the requisite amount to keep the retirement account looking good…rinse wash repeat. Whatever. I guess the end goal is retirement and death for everyone, right? What do you want to accomplish in your “dash”, Kyle? I feel like a good person for the most part, but every once in awhile, I feel like I am pure evil, the worst person on the planet and I don’t ever really know why. Hmm….I haven’t done that much bad stuff…no more than most other people…or so it seems. There goes another ten minutes. I wonder…hmm…6.5hrs is like 39 more times that ten minutes have to pass unnoticed….then I can go get a campsite, shower and all that. Hahahahahahahh. This is getting to be a desperate routine. I’m going to end up sleeping my days away and stay up at night typing to myself until something happens. I should try to have a campsite setup tomorrow by 8pm or something so I don’t end up in this same position again. Work is not interesting…it’s fun here and there, but I can be a resource for anything, why would I pick SAP? That’s not what I want. I would rather fix bikes for a living or design something or just work on mechanical stuff all day long. See…I know if I say that I’m going to go back to school right now, I will get all excited about it and whatnot and maybe even go pick up a catalog…but I can almost guarantee myself right now that I wouldn’t take it any further than that. Yeah yeah…when is it going to be the right time to go back? I have no fucking idea. Lorena really does confuse me. She wants super analytical levels of detail about the smallest thing. Should she call me? Is it ok? Is she contributing to my stress? HAHA. She is stress…one big ball of irresponsible unmotivated stress. I think today is the day that ford is going to take my car payment outta my account. That will be interesting. Hopefully they wont screw it up too much. Seeing as how I am riding on my cash accounts and whatever. Yeah, that makes it sounds like I have a ton of cash for this trip, when I’m really riding on my credit card for all of the gas and using the cash for the other stuff. Ok…I’m going to crash here and see what comes of that in the morning…g’nite. 1244 now…hmm…only 6hrs 10 mins…yeah right J
Night three…Seattle (sorta). I’m sittin in some ghetto druggie hotel / motel that I worked myself into. What a wonderful world, eh? I pulled another lack of planning stunt and managed to arrive at the park that I eventually found, (courtesy of steve’s GPS) around 7:30pm. It seems that pretty much every park around here closes at dusk…so my policy for tomorrow night’s camping adventure is 6pm…in the park…that’s it. HAHA no more of this sleeping in the car with no shower and whatever. This ghetto place was $35/night…and they are probably going to use my credit card number on the ‘net to order up all sorts of fun shit that I will get to explain to Visa. Whatever…that’s what credit cards are for. I’m going to have to hide the laptop and gps and camera in the room tonight, as I really don’t trust this place. It’s better than sleeping in the car, I guess, but not by much. I wonder where 911 calls from cell phones go in Washington? Oh yeah… I think I’m in a Seattle suburb called Des Moines right now. That’s where the park was that I was going to crash at…I was all excited that I was here before 8pm, which was my new time to hit the camp site by after last night’s repeat sleep in the car fiasco. Haha…at least I slept well…and didn’t have to worry about my stuff getting jacked. But here…I get a shower and I’m paid up and legal to be sleeping here. We shall see…everything in life is a gamble at one level or another. Hey!! Tomorrow is my first real day of vacation…I don’t have to worry about getting up for work on a Monday morning. Fun times. I will just be happy if I wake up with all my stuff intact (including the car). I think I will probably hit Seattle in the morning and grab some coffee…probably hang out until 2 or 3, then move on out towards Canada. If that doesn’t take me longer than I’m thinking it will, I should be good to go for the 6pm in camp plan. Then I will actually get to try out my sleeping bag and tent. It’s pretty damn cold here…I wonder what it will be like outdoors in the great Canadian wilderness? Yeah buddy!! A zero degree bag…on one or two blankets…it should be interesting for sure. I’m actually thinking about bringing it in here for the night…nah. I do have both of my blankets and my pillow. I don’t trust these sheets. I’ll take some pics of this place just to be sure that I can look back on the exact degree of my idiocy and hopefully force myself into a little more of a planned situation the next time I try to head out on the great American highways…dunno when that will be… Ok…I’m going to hit the shower now and see if I can get some sleep. I’m going to try to stash my stuff…mmmm….under the bed, I guess. Cheerio!...wish me luck J
I’m sitting in line for the canadian border right now…kinda odd. I guess I never really expected to have to wait to get in. I wonder what the big deal is? Do they really check that much stuff that it takes awhile to get in? I guess so. Anyhow…its 1240pm…a little earlier than I expected to be here, but that’s cool. I guess I will probably just dink around vancouver for a few hours and be extra proactive in finding a campsite. I hope they are cool up in canada…everyone seems to think that canadians are pretty cool, so I don’t expect there to be any major issues. I’m a little nervous about experiencing this new culture. This is kinda the “endpoint” of this trip, if there ever could be one…actually, its really only the halfway point…and I still have more than half of my vacation to go. That’s good…I will have plenty of leisure time to explore the redwoods…vancouver…whatever my heart desires, really. I don’t know that I am really looking to meet any women…but if I do…then I do. Not that anything will come of it, but there is always that thrill of the first encounter and whatever. On road trips…they are fun, but damn…that’s a lot of driving…hahaha..i guess the name says it all, eh? Road Trip! Lalala. I think my next trip will have to be a flight somewhere…then let the random ebb and flow of the tides of life take me where they will…I’m not sure what to think of seattle…I think I was expecting something life changing or whatever to reach out and grab me…but it was just another place. I really didn’t choose to invest the time necessary to seek out the places that might have pulled me in, just bounced through the city, grabbed my coffee to go and was off running to the next destination (here). Hmm…seattle and rainier are definitely on the list to revist. Rainier had some sweet areas where you could spend all day just bouncing down one trail, then the next…maybe like 5 days there would be good. It was great talkin to the guy at the park about his life and all that…and I loved the fact that it snowed….if only for ten minutes. There is something about the snow that makes life feel clean….duh, its white…but just being in the snow made me happy…probably happier than it should have. Whatever…it DID make me happy and that’s that. :D. I’m still not sure if I am going to take the ferry to victoria island, but that attitude has pretty much been the theme of this trip. LoL…that and sleeping in the car (so far). Hopefully I can change that with my new plan to be in a campsite by 6pm everyday from now on. I really do want to spend some time out in nature, just camping it up. Gotta break in the new bag, right? Yay!! Zero degree bags from Marmot rock!!!...well…they do in oxnard, in my living room…on carpet…Umm…I think I’m about done…and I’m just about all the way to the border…I will leave this thing to freecell until I’m there. Until next time…adieu! J
Later in canada…Golly gee…I have less than no luck with this whole camping up and down the coast thing…Oh, did I mention that I locked my keys in the car this morning? I used the phone at the ghetto hotel (found out in the time waiting for the tow truck that the guy working there is pretty cool) to call the tow truck driver…twice in five days…haha. So immediately after leaving the hotel, I hit up the local auto parts store and picked up a few hide a key boxes. I will have to see if AAA has one of those plastic key dealies just to get into the car…that would be a nice backup to the backup. But I did make sure to put the little magnetic dealie under the car, where it now waits for my next time of trauma. Back to Canada…(I have now given in to the fact that I’m going to be sleeping in my car again)…haha…battery ran out.
WEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I mention that I found an actual campground…that’s open…that has water in the pool…and I paid…and now I’m actually getting to camp in my tent…on my road trip YEAH!!. OMG I am so excited….by the fact that I’m not sleeping in my car…or in some ghetto hotel (btw, no pics of that place, the batteries on the cam cam were dead and I didn’t want to cruise back into the room just for some pics)…oh well. Did I mention that Canadian women are actually friendly? Yeah…I was at the previous prospective campsite and there were a few women there…and they were actually friendly!! I’m not sayin that they came up and asked to jump my bones or anything (that’s not that I’m lookin for…so that’s cool), but they actually responded to me…smiling at me and interested in talking…instead of the usual cali “blah…” and the look that I usually get that makes me want to go be a hermit for the rest of my daze(d) life. ;) yeah buddy…so I don’t know what to make of that…I don’t know if its just that women up here respond more to ME, or if they are just more friendly, but either way, I’m digging it….and I get to enjoy it for another day YEAH!!!...I’m so stoked that I actually get to camp…did I mention that? Oh…this place is called Tynehead RV Camp…doesn’t sound like a place where they would have a spot for tents, but they do have a grassy knoll next to some kind of RV graveyard, where the grass is flat enough to pitch a tent. The previous prospective location (as it I now known as) was called Anmore Camplands..it looked like some sort of privately owned joint…but it had closed for one reason or another. I am pretty glad that I headed up that way…as it was up in the mountains surrounding the Vancouver area…because the lake was nice…but dang was I bummed at being shut down again. Anyhow..I’m going to pitch the tent and get all that setup and maybe hit the spa before calling it a night…I will do my best to jump back on this thang and put down some more schpielage… J
So yeah…scoped out the area…setup the tent…w00t!! Took a break to put some music on…remembered that guy findley quaye…and William orbit. They put together a tight song called dice…check it out for sure. Combo funky voice guy and smooth techno integration. Rock out on it. I think it gets dark here earlier than cali…its like 650 and its pretty much flashlight weather out right now. I guess that’s ok, but it cuts into my exploration time for sure. I keep taking deep breaths…what a relief to actually have a place to stay tonight…anyhow, enough of that…um yeah…I think I’m going to go for a short walk around the park, and retire to my wonderfully erected tent J
At the border again…spent a little of the morning putzing around BC…then decided to head back to seattle for the day to chill…and probably camp just south of there for the night. I might head over to the last national park on my list for this trip…I think I’m going to do seattle….maybe I will just take a ferry over there. That would be pretty cool. One of my many plans for this trip included two ferry rides…one to Victoria island from Canadian mainland and another from the island back to the us…which would have landed me on the other side of the sound from seattle…maybe I will head straight to the ferry and cruise down to the national park today.
So yeah…I’m in line for the ferry over to port townsend right now. It was 7.75 for the ferry ride, which is awesome…it is the shortest ferry ride from the seattle side over to the…err…other side? This will be my first time on a vehicle ferry ride…woohoo! Not that it is too much different than going fishing with dad on those trips…those crew boats have flat backs and are probably very similar to the ship that I will be cruising on today. I’m definitely glad to be back in the US…I can’t say why…I don’t really like the US for any particular reason other than the fact that I was born here…but it is home. I wonder how long they are going to keep us waiting here? There are something like ten lanes for waiting peoples and I was put in lane two…there are three lanes that are nearly full right now…hmm….ok…time for a “learnings” bla ba…so far…on this trip, I have remembered how much of a fan of music I am…so I need to invest more in that…whether that means that I should buy an mp3 player…or hook up some music creation programs, I do not know…but I will look into that more. Hmm…I think I should also start going to church again. For some reaon…I feel that I have been getting pulled in that direction while on this trip. I cant really explain that, but that’s just how it is, so deal J women..hmm…not too many learnings on that subject…not that I will have too many learnings on that one in my lifetime, but hmm…friendly women rock…I don’t want to have to fight for/with (duh) my woman. I hate (what seems to be) the California attitude that women are there for me to work for…towards…like men need to earn women. Men and women go together like peanut butter and jelly…except better. So yeah…I guess I will keep on like I have been keeping on…reading mens health for the universally applicable truths…and see what I can do with that. I’m not saying that I’m trying to seduce women, but I do want to have as good an understanding as possible, since the first person learnings have been far and few between. On work…no clue…let me think about that for a few more decades :P
Cigarettes and chocolate by rufus wainright or something…what a goofy name…haha…like he got to choose it.
Musical concept…what the hell…song a) – not necessarily the first song on the disc, it would have to start with an intro of some sort…anyhow, the song…techno themed…titled NEWS…random blatherings in a brit accent…about the compass directions…north east south west and the lot. Random cake style lyrics with a propellerheads type intensity…I’m not talking about the drum n bass intensity…that will come later in the album…just the announcer type commentary for the intro…then the random, non politically associated, yet announcer style lyrics…
Song b)…XYZ..like the three dimensions from math…I think it was trig that first brought them about, but I would have to check on that to be sure…anyhow, the song would be techno or something…depending on how gorillaz the rest of the ideaz turn out to be…but whatever…yeah so talkin about the grade that they came up in…the other topics…how Z is new and whatnot…
so yeah…now I’m in Olympic national park and its really dark. I setup my tent and all…and as I was doing so, another car pulled up into a nearby spot and setup camp. Thank golly they did…it would have been super freaky being out here totally alone. I guess the host spot people are here…but they don’t count…who knows what the host people do out here all alone. Haha…kinda funny that random strangers are better than the host people that the govt selects to sit out here and hold down the fort. Anyhow…as I was paying for the campsite…y’know…dropping money into a box for someone to pickup later? Well…yeah…as I was doing that…one of the other camper people came up..scared the begeebers outta me. Yeah…but I guess there are two of them…the one that I met was female…somehow that is more comforting than having met a guy. I guess now I figure that I have to be all macho and whatnot…if she can do it…so can i…haha. Anyways…I just had to throw some words down about how freakin weird it is being out here in the dark alone. This journal gives me someone to talk to when I have no cell reception…a friend where no others are J anyways…I think it is time to hit the sack so I can wake up nice and early and see what this beautiful? Place looks like in the light of the sun that I miss so much now. Oh…the “inspiration” for the above blatherings…caffeine…yeah…I guess running on those energy drinks kinda takes the caffeine dependency outta the system anyhow…I’m off to sleep… J
I think today is Wednesday and it is another good day. My days are good if I am at a campsite and setup…not having to worry about sleeping in the car again. Tonight, I found a KOA kampsite in a place called Lincoln city. My original goal for the night was to make it down to Newport, which is just south of agate beach…the agate beach in Oregon. I was excited that I would be able to stop by there…but when I looked into what amenities the campsites offered, I found that none of them offered showers…which I am in desperate need of. So…I picked a location a little farther north in exchange for that particular add. As of now, I have camp setup, the car parked and whatever…and I got a short workout in, and it just turned 6 o clock. Hows that for planning? Haha…I rock! Anyhow…I have to go take a shower and cleanup before moving on, so I’m going to leave it at that for now…maybe I will stop back by after the shower to throw down some more words…perhaps about the cracked windshield…arg!@#$@%$... J
Ok…now the campsite is settled…I’m a little more settled and…ahhhhhhhh. I think I have finally relaxed. This whole trip has kinda been place to place…even though it was random, there was a destination. Once I hit canada, some of the pressure let up, but there was still something there. Now…I think I’m just happy to be off work…doin my own thing. I’m not saying that I have had any huge mind expanding epiphanies…but I do feel that a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It was really…really…really nice sitting in the car today…filling ‘er up with gas and the phone alarm went off…IE meeting!! Aaaak!! I could have been getting ready for a meeting, but no, I was in northwest Washington, filling up my car with gas….getting ready for another five or six hours on the road, just doing what I want to do. Not that I really accomplished anything during this trip…I just went from point a to point b over and over again…without ever really knowing where the next point b would be hahaha. It was a fun feeling, when those two girls on the freeway, on day 1, asked me where I was heading…I just said Canada….they asked where I was staying that night (Friday) and I said…dunno. Haha. I ended up sleeping in my car just south of redding, but just the unknown was fun. That was back when I was driving too many hours in the day…I think that started to wear on me. I have been driving for the majority of the days still, but there is no pressing urge to get to the next spot…I just kinda bounce here and there…speaking of the next spot…I think I’m going to try to hit redwood national park tomorrow…and if I have time to explore it tomorrow, so be it, but if I don’t, I will just camp there and stop by to see the fam on Friday, before making a possible direct jump on down to bryan’s house. That’s the fun part about my driving trip…no plans…more of just a general idea…I know that I will be staying at Bryans on sat night…and I know I will be at home sun night…yada yada…but the in between time is as of yet unknown…I’ll get back to ya ;) yeah…so that’s where I’m at. Pretty good…definitely feeling much better than most days in the past few months…but I don’t think that I’m quite back up to superkyle status. I know that I’m not far off and hopefully some of the things that came up in this trip will help me figure out where I should be going…where I want to go, rather, in my life. One of the random radio stations that I hit on while paying too much attention to my driving and not enough attention to what I was listening to (I noticed that I have a tendency to leave music on that bugs me until it is, for whatever reason, brought to my attention). Anyhow…like I was saying…this radio station. It was a pastor, who was talking about how each of us has a fixed lifespan. Not so much a set number of days, just that the average person will live to seventy or so. He even went so far as to give stats based on the number of people he had in the audience…what percentwould die of this or that…and at what age. I thought the whole thing was absurd. To top it off, he said…for all you thirty year olds…you have forty years left. For all you forty year olds, you have thirty years left…and, get this…for all you seventy year olds…you are living on overtime. That part kinda pissed me off. But I guess he was just trying to drive home the point that no matter how young you are right now, you only really have so long to live and that whatever you are going to get done in your life might as well be done now, instead of waiting until tomorrow to do it….y’know…just do it! Ha. Anyways…I guess that random point just kinda stuck for some reason. I was also fortunate enough to catch some of the debates…bush is a total waste of a person…and kerry is going to drop the ball with terrorism…blarg…why cant we ever get a candidate for the most important position in the world that is worth a damn? Oh well…c’est la vie, ja? Late! J
Currently listening:
Brushfire Fairytales
By Jack Johnson
Release date: 29 January, 2002
This copy of word is licensed to robbie williams…probably the brit pop singer. Haha what a joke. Anyhow, I’m sitting up here darn near mount st Helens and I have no place to sleep. Its 1215am…I’m half wired on monster energy drinks and the other half dead tired from driving ALL day. I started today in…er….umm…somewhere a little north of redding…I think. It all starts to run together after awhile. So yeah. I went to crater lake national park today, that was hot! There were great views all across the park, both of the lake and the surrounding volcanoes and whatnots. Oregon was growing on me, but I don’t know what to think for real, seeing as how I was only there for less than 12hrs. Whatever. I would have kept on driving tonight, but for the fact that I know that I’m practically sitting on top of MSH and it would just kill me to be this close and not to see it. LoL…I think I’m going to try to hit Mt Rainier National Park tomorrow. I’ll bet that that park is pretty much that one mountain…but it’s usually snow capped and symmetrical, so it should make for some good photos. It’s also a National Park, so I could check that one off the list. One of these days, I’m going to have to do some of the cool national parks for real instead of just pulling these day trip drive through run the trail snap the pics in n out deals…haha. So tomorrow, I will probably just kick it here for a bit, then roll on up the the aforementioned NP…maybe hit seattle later in the day. Seattle is only 120 or so miles from here, so it shouldn’t be a chore at all to make it there tomorrow. Canada is something like 150 miles north of Seattle, so that will be an interesting skip hop jump. I love this trip…I think. J I’m without direction for the most part…just following the road signs that point to items of interest. Gawd I’m indecisive tonight…I kinda screwed myself by getting here so late, though. I could have crashed behind a supermarket or something back in St Helen (city in Oregon on the way up to Washington) oh well. C’est la vie, ja? WHAT THE FUCK!! Figure your shit out kyle. On the bright side…the other campground will be opening up in 6.5hrs…yay. I wonder if I can keep this up for that much longer…um…nah. It has been ten minutes and I’m already babbling like a buffoon. This laptop isn’t half bad to type on. I guess the short distance that y’have to push for the keys to respond makes up for the lame ass setup…too small of a board…yeah, that’s about it. Wow…a few guys at a site next to me threw some road flares in the firepit to get it started and its flaming up huge pink right now. Drinking at the same time…gawd people are smart. …but I’m the one sitting here not sure if I should be here or not, right? Its funny how it would be easier for me to find a place to park and sleep in a “city” vs out here in the absolute middle of no where. Ah…I will drive back to the fwy and find a gas station to sleep behind. I wonder what someone would do if they found me randomly sleeping behind their building? Probably just give me the …sucks to be you look and move on. Dunno. Hey…I think this trip epitomizes my life right now. Without detailed direction, just going through the motions. I go to work, save the requisite amount to keep the retirement account looking good…rinse wash repeat. Whatever. I guess the end goal is retirement and death for everyone, right? What do you want to accomplish in your “dash”, Kyle? I feel like a good person for the most part, but every once in awhile, I feel like I am pure evil, the worst person on the planet and I don’t ever really know why. Hmm….I haven’t done that much bad stuff…no more than most other people…or so it seems. There goes another ten minutes. I wonder…hmm…6.5hrs is like 39 more times that ten minutes have to pass unnoticed….then I can go get a campsite, shower and all that. Hahahahahahahh. This is getting to be a desperate routine. I’m going to end up sleeping my days away and stay up at night typing to myself until something happens. I should try to have a campsite setup tomorrow by 8pm or something so I don’t end up in this same position again. Work is not interesting…it’s fun here and there, but I can be a resource for anything, why would I pick SAP? That’s not what I want. I would rather fix bikes for a living or design something or just work on mechanical stuff all day long. See…I know if I say that I’m going to go back to school right now, I will get all excited about it and whatnot and maybe even go pick up a catalog…but I can almost guarantee myself right now that I wouldn’t take it any further than that. Yeah yeah…when is it going to be the right time to go back? I have no fucking idea. Lorena really does confuse me. She wants super analytical levels of detail about the smallest thing. Should she call me? Is it ok? Is she contributing to my stress? HAHA. She is stress…one big ball of irresponsible unmotivated stress. I think today is the day that ford is going to take my car payment outta my account. That will be interesting. Hopefully they wont screw it up too much. Seeing as how I am riding on my cash accounts and whatever. Yeah, that makes it sounds like I have a ton of cash for this trip, when I’m really riding on my credit card for all of the gas and using the cash for the other stuff. Ok…I’m going to crash here and see what comes of that in the morning…g’nite. 1244 now…hmm…only 6hrs 10 mins…yeah right J
Night three…Seattle (sorta). I’m sittin in some ghetto druggie hotel / motel that I worked myself into. What a wonderful world, eh? I pulled another lack of planning stunt and managed to arrive at the park that I eventually found, (courtesy of steve’s GPS) around 7:30pm. It seems that pretty much every park around here closes at dusk…so my policy for tomorrow night’s camping adventure is 6pm…in the park…that’s it. HAHA no more of this sleeping in the car with no shower and whatever. This ghetto place was $35/night…and they are probably going to use my credit card number on the ‘net to order up all sorts of fun shit that I will get to explain to Visa. Whatever…that’s what credit cards are for. I’m going to have to hide the laptop and gps and camera in the room tonight, as I really don’t trust this place. It’s better than sleeping in the car, I guess, but not by much. I wonder where 911 calls from cell phones go in Washington? Oh yeah… I think I’m in a Seattle suburb called Des Moines right now. That’s where the park was that I was going to crash at…I was all excited that I was here before 8pm, which was my new time to hit the camp site by after last night’s repeat sleep in the car fiasco. Haha…at least I slept well…and didn’t have to worry about my stuff getting jacked. But here…I get a shower and I’m paid up and legal to be sleeping here. We shall see…everything in life is a gamble at one level or another. Hey!! Tomorrow is my first real day of vacation…I don’t have to worry about getting up for work on a Monday morning. Fun times. I will just be happy if I wake up with all my stuff intact (including the car). I think I will probably hit Seattle in the morning and grab some coffee…probably hang out until 2 or 3, then move on out towards Canada. If that doesn’t take me longer than I’m thinking it will, I should be good to go for the 6pm in camp plan. Then I will actually get to try out my sleeping bag and tent. It’s pretty damn cold here…I wonder what it will be like outdoors in the great Canadian wilderness? Yeah buddy!! A zero degree bag…on one or two blankets…it should be interesting for sure. I’m actually thinking about bringing it in here for the night…nah. I do have both of my blankets and my pillow. I don’t trust these sheets. I’ll take some pics of this place just to be sure that I can look back on the exact degree of my idiocy and hopefully force myself into a little more of a planned situation the next time I try to head out on the great American highways…dunno when that will be… Ok…I’m going to hit the shower now and see if I can get some sleep. I’m going to try to stash my stuff…mmmm….under the bed, I guess. Cheerio!...wish me luck J
I’m sitting in line for the canadian border right now…kinda odd. I guess I never really expected to have to wait to get in. I wonder what the big deal is? Do they really check that much stuff that it takes awhile to get in? I guess so. Anyhow…its 1240pm…a little earlier than I expected to be here, but that’s cool. I guess I will probably just dink around vancouver for a few hours and be extra proactive in finding a campsite. I hope they are cool up in canada…everyone seems to think that canadians are pretty cool, so I don’t expect there to be any major issues. I’m a little nervous about experiencing this new culture. This is kinda the “endpoint” of this trip, if there ever could be one…actually, its really only the halfway point…and I still have more than half of my vacation to go. That’s good…I will have plenty of leisure time to explore the redwoods…vancouver…whatever my heart desires, really. I don’t know that I am really looking to meet any women…but if I do…then I do. Not that anything will come of it, but there is always that thrill of the first encounter and whatever. On road trips…they are fun, but damn…that’s a lot of driving…hahaha..i guess the name says it all, eh? Road Trip! Lalala. I think my next trip will have to be a flight somewhere…then let the random ebb and flow of the tides of life take me where they will…I’m not sure what to think of seattle…I think I was expecting something life changing or whatever to reach out and grab me…but it was just another place. I really didn’t choose to invest the time necessary to seek out the places that might have pulled me in, just bounced through the city, grabbed my coffee to go and was off running to the next destination (here). Hmm…seattle and rainier are definitely on the list to revist. Rainier had some sweet areas where you could spend all day just bouncing down one trail, then the next…maybe like 5 days there would be good. It was great talkin to the guy at the park about his life and all that…and I loved the fact that it snowed….if only for ten minutes. There is something about the snow that makes life feel clean….duh, its white…but just being in the snow made me happy…probably happier than it should have. Whatever…it DID make me happy and that’s that. :D. I’m still not sure if I am going to take the ferry to victoria island, but that attitude has pretty much been the theme of this trip. LoL…that and sleeping in the car (so far). Hopefully I can change that with my new plan to be in a campsite by 6pm everyday from now on. I really do want to spend some time out in nature, just camping it up. Gotta break in the new bag, right? Yay!! Zero degree bags from Marmot rock!!!...well…they do in oxnard, in my living room…on carpet…Umm…I think I’m about done…and I’m just about all the way to the border…I will leave this thing to freecell until I’m there. Until next time…adieu! J
Later in canada…Golly gee…I have less than no luck with this whole camping up and down the coast thing…Oh, did I mention that I locked my keys in the car this morning? I used the phone at the ghetto hotel (found out in the time waiting for the tow truck that the guy working there is pretty cool) to call the tow truck driver…twice in five days…haha. So immediately after leaving the hotel, I hit up the local auto parts store and picked up a few hide a key boxes. I will have to see if AAA has one of those plastic key dealies just to get into the car…that would be a nice backup to the backup. But I did make sure to put the little magnetic dealie under the car, where it now waits for my next time of trauma. Back to Canada…(I have now given in to the fact that I’m going to be sleeping in my car again)…haha…battery ran out.
WEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I mention that I found an actual campground…that’s open…that has water in the pool…and I paid…and now I’m actually getting to camp in my tent…on my road trip YEAH!!. OMG I am so excited….by the fact that I’m not sleeping in my car…or in some ghetto hotel (btw, no pics of that place, the batteries on the cam cam were dead and I didn’t want to cruise back into the room just for some pics)…oh well. Did I mention that Canadian women are actually friendly? Yeah…I was at the previous prospective campsite and there were a few women there…and they were actually friendly!! I’m not sayin that they came up and asked to jump my bones or anything (that’s not that I’m lookin for…so that’s cool), but they actually responded to me…smiling at me and interested in talking…instead of the usual cali “blah…” and the look that I usually get that makes me want to go be a hermit for the rest of my daze(d) life. ;) yeah buddy…so I don’t know what to make of that…I don’t know if its just that women up here respond more to ME, or if they are just more friendly, but either way, I’m digging it….and I get to enjoy it for another day YEAH!!!...I’m so stoked that I actually get to camp…did I mention that? Oh…this place is called Tynehead RV Camp…doesn’t sound like a place where they would have a spot for tents, but they do have a grassy knoll next to some kind of RV graveyard, where the grass is flat enough to pitch a tent. The previous prospective location (as it I now known as) was called Anmore Camplands..it looked like some sort of privately owned joint…but it had closed for one reason or another. I am pretty glad that I headed up that way…as it was up in the mountains surrounding the Vancouver area…because the lake was nice…but dang was I bummed at being shut down again. Anyhow..I’m going to pitch the tent and get all that setup and maybe hit the spa before calling it a night…I will do my best to jump back on this thang and put down some more schpielage… J
So yeah…scoped out the area…setup the tent…w00t!! Took a break to put some music on…remembered that guy findley quaye…and William orbit. They put together a tight song called dice…check it out for sure. Combo funky voice guy and smooth techno integration. Rock out on it. I think it gets dark here earlier than cali…its like 650 and its pretty much flashlight weather out right now. I guess that’s ok, but it cuts into my exploration time for sure. I keep taking deep breaths…what a relief to actually have a place to stay tonight…anyhow, enough of that…um yeah…I think I’m going to go for a short walk around the park, and retire to my wonderfully erected tent J
At the border again…spent a little of the morning putzing around BC…then decided to head back to seattle for the day to chill…and probably camp just south of there for the night. I might head over to the last national park on my list for this trip…I think I’m going to do seattle….maybe I will just take a ferry over there. That would be pretty cool. One of my many plans for this trip included two ferry rides…one to Victoria island from Canadian mainland and another from the island back to the us…which would have landed me on the other side of the sound from seattle…maybe I will head straight to the ferry and cruise down to the national park today.
So yeah…I’m in line for the ferry over to port townsend right now. It was 7.75 for the ferry ride, which is awesome…it is the shortest ferry ride from the seattle side over to the…err…other side? This will be my first time on a vehicle ferry ride…woohoo! Not that it is too much different than going fishing with dad on those trips…those crew boats have flat backs and are probably very similar to the ship that I will be cruising on today. I’m definitely glad to be back in the US…I can’t say why…I don’t really like the US for any particular reason other than the fact that I was born here…but it is home. I wonder how long they are going to keep us waiting here? There are something like ten lanes for waiting peoples and I was put in lane two…there are three lanes that are nearly full right now…hmm….ok…time for a “learnings” bla ba…so far…on this trip, I have remembered how much of a fan of music I am…so I need to invest more in that…whether that means that I should buy an mp3 player…or hook up some music creation programs, I do not know…but I will look into that more. Hmm…I think I should also start going to church again. For some reaon…I feel that I have been getting pulled in that direction while on this trip. I cant really explain that, but that’s just how it is, so deal J women..hmm…not too many learnings on that subject…not that I will have too many learnings on that one in my lifetime, but hmm…friendly women rock…I don’t want to have to fight for/with (duh) my woman. I hate (what seems to be) the California attitude that women are there for me to work for…towards…like men need to earn women. Men and women go together like peanut butter and jelly…except better. So yeah…I guess I will keep on like I have been keeping on…reading mens health for the universally applicable truths…and see what I can do with that. I’m not saying that I’m trying to seduce women, but I do want to have as good an understanding as possible, since the first person learnings have been far and few between. On work…no clue…let me think about that for a few more decades :P
Cigarettes and chocolate by rufus wainright or something…what a goofy name…haha…like he got to choose it.
Musical concept…what the hell…song a) – not necessarily the first song on the disc, it would have to start with an intro of some sort…anyhow, the song…techno themed…titled NEWS…random blatherings in a brit accent…about the compass directions…north east south west and the lot. Random cake style lyrics with a propellerheads type intensity…I’m not talking about the drum n bass intensity…that will come later in the album…just the announcer type commentary for the intro…then the random, non politically associated, yet announcer style lyrics…
Song b)…XYZ..like the three dimensions from math…I think it was trig that first brought them about, but I would have to check on that to be sure…anyhow, the song would be techno or something…depending on how gorillaz the rest of the ideaz turn out to be…but whatever…yeah so talkin about the grade that they came up in…the other topics…how Z is new and whatnot…
so yeah…now I’m in Olympic national park and its really dark. I setup my tent and all…and as I was doing so, another car pulled up into a nearby spot and setup camp. Thank golly they did…it would have been super freaky being out here totally alone. I guess the host spot people are here…but they don’t count…who knows what the host people do out here all alone. Haha…kinda funny that random strangers are better than the host people that the govt selects to sit out here and hold down the fort. Anyhow…as I was paying for the campsite…y’know…dropping money into a box for someone to pickup later? Well…yeah…as I was doing that…one of the other camper people came up..scared the begeebers outta me. Yeah…but I guess there are two of them…the one that I met was female…somehow that is more comforting than having met a guy. I guess now I figure that I have to be all macho and whatnot…if she can do it…so can i…haha. Anyways…I just had to throw some words down about how freakin weird it is being out here in the dark alone. This journal gives me someone to talk to when I have no cell reception…a friend where no others are J anyways…I think it is time to hit the sack so I can wake up nice and early and see what this beautiful? Place looks like in the light of the sun that I miss so much now. Oh…the “inspiration” for the above blatherings…caffeine…yeah…I guess running on those energy drinks kinda takes the caffeine dependency outta the system anyhow…I’m off to sleep… J
I think today is Wednesday and it is another good day. My days are good if I am at a campsite and setup…not having to worry about sleeping in the car again. Tonight, I found a KOA kampsite in a place called Lincoln city. My original goal for the night was to make it down to Newport, which is just south of agate beach…the agate beach in Oregon. I was excited that I would be able to stop by there…but when I looked into what amenities the campsites offered, I found that none of them offered showers…which I am in desperate need of. So…I picked a location a little farther north in exchange for that particular add. As of now, I have camp setup, the car parked and whatever…and I got a short workout in, and it just turned 6 o clock. Hows that for planning? Haha…I rock! Anyhow…I have to go take a shower and cleanup before moving on, so I’m going to leave it at that for now…maybe I will stop back by after the shower to throw down some more words…perhaps about the cracked windshield…arg!@#$@%$... J
Ok…now the campsite is settled…I’m a little more settled and…ahhhhhhhh. I think I have finally relaxed. This whole trip has kinda been place to place…even though it was random, there was a destination. Once I hit canada, some of the pressure let up, but there was still something there. Now…I think I’m just happy to be off work…doin my own thing. I’m not saying that I have had any huge mind expanding epiphanies…but I do feel that a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It was really…really…really nice sitting in the car today…filling ‘er up with gas and the phone alarm went off…IE meeting!! Aaaak!! I could have been getting ready for a meeting, but no, I was in northwest Washington, filling up my car with gas….getting ready for another five or six hours on the road, just doing what I want to do. Not that I really accomplished anything during this trip…I just went from point a to point b over and over again…without ever really knowing where the next point b would be hahaha. It was a fun feeling, when those two girls on the freeway, on day 1, asked me where I was heading…I just said Canada….they asked where I was staying that night (Friday) and I said…dunno. Haha. I ended up sleeping in my car just south of redding, but just the unknown was fun. That was back when I was driving too many hours in the day…I think that started to wear on me. I have been driving for the majority of the days still, but there is no pressing urge to get to the next spot…I just kinda bounce here and there…speaking of the next spot…I think I’m going to try to hit redwood national park tomorrow…and if I have time to explore it tomorrow, so be it, but if I don’t, I will just camp there and stop by to see the fam on Friday, before making a possible direct jump on down to bryan’s house. That’s the fun part about my driving trip…no plans…more of just a general idea…I know that I will be staying at Bryans on sat night…and I know I will be at home sun night…yada yada…but the in between time is as of yet unknown…I’ll get back to ya ;) yeah…so that’s where I’m at. Pretty good…definitely feeling much better than most days in the past few months…but I don’t think that I’m quite back up to superkyle status. I know that I’m not far off and hopefully some of the things that came up in this trip will help me figure out where I should be going…where I want to go, rather, in my life. One of the random radio stations that I hit on while paying too much attention to my driving and not enough attention to what I was listening to (I noticed that I have a tendency to leave music on that bugs me until it is, for whatever reason, brought to my attention). Anyhow…like I was saying…this radio station. It was a pastor, who was talking about how each of us has a fixed lifespan. Not so much a set number of days, just that the average person will live to seventy or so. He even went so far as to give stats based on the number of people he had in the audience…what percentwould die of this or that…and at what age. I thought the whole thing was absurd. To top it off, he said…for all you thirty year olds…you have forty years left. For all you forty year olds, you have thirty years left…and, get this…for all you seventy year olds…you are living on overtime. That part kinda pissed me off. But I guess he was just trying to drive home the point that no matter how young you are right now, you only really have so long to live and that whatever you are going to get done in your life might as well be done now, instead of waiting until tomorrow to do it….y’know…just do it! Ha. Anyways…I guess that random point just kinda stuck for some reason. I was also fortunate enough to catch some of the debates…bush is a total waste of a person…and kerry is going to drop the ball with terrorism…blarg…why cant we ever get a candidate for the most important position in the world that is worth a damn? Oh well…c’est la vie, ja? Late! J
Currently listening:
Brushfire Fairytales
By Jack Johnson
Release date: 29 January, 2002
Sunday, November 07, 2004
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (ported from myspace)
...and a spoon full of suger. Go figure. Welcome to sunday! If you are reading this, that means that you have survived another weekend. Congratulations! You have successfully passed one of the tests required for entry into the next work week. Aren't you excited? Another five full days of work. Whether that means 8-5, 2-10 or some other ludicrious combination of 8 working hours...you are in. Hopefully, you have spent the time to find a job that you enjoy and those 8 hours will fly by...1 through 5 and you might not even notice the smooth transition into the next weekend. HOWEVER!!...if you are on the other side of the fence and you have fallen into a job...and subsequently, found yourself stuck, tied down by bills and other vices of this wonderful world...Monday means that you are re-entering the hell that is work....struggling hour after hour...just to pay for the car that transports you to your least favorite place to be...to pay for the food that sustains you through your working day...to pay for the clothes that wear you all day long at your job...chafing you in places unseen. Oh sweet life, rescue me from this nightmare that is 5/7...aak! is it life that we search for? is life looking for us? are we being sought out by that which we have spent many an hour pondering and searching for ourselves? "our greatest fears are now reality" JM does this mean that life is work...and nothing more? are we to struggle through 5 only to live 2? those two turn to blah when we find ourselves lost in time, searching for the daily routine that we have been trained to follow. our body's clock is set to the timing of the employer...our lives are set around the dollar. we do not search for the freedom that we can have, as we have never known it. life is a mystery novel, with the killer's face ever hidden in the shadow. we wander aimlessly in search for something that will fill the void. time is nothing until we turn white, as we all must. day after day...sunrise sunset...faster faster...payday is still 13 days off. save save...vacation is coming....spend spend..holidaze are here....wee!!
Currently listening:
White Ladder
By David Gray
Release date: 21 March, 2000
Currently listening:
White Ladder
By David Gray
Release date: 21 March, 2000
Monday, November 01, 2004
Ponder ponder... (ported from myspace)
"Okay, because today's been uneventful and ive been reading some Nietzsche.. its time for me to address a few issues. I was reading the SA forums when someone made a post about how he turned away from negativity and pessimism, he stopped thinking hes a failure, that hes worthless, and he started thinking positively. More so, he stopped hanging out with negative people because their negativity drained on him and made him negative. This guy has made a critical step, he examined himself and his assumptions about life and CHOSE to change them. Whether the change sticks, thats also a choice he makes. He thought to himself "Why am i unhappy?" "Why do I always think i will fail?" "Why am I not confident in abilities as a human?". He answered these questions most undoubtably "because Im in a pattern of negative thinking, and its reinforced by the negativity of my friends." Here are a few steps 1) Realize there is a problem 2) Search for what the problem is, and what assumptions or conflicts are causing the problem 3) Soulseek and research for a solution 4) CHOOSE to implement the solution. Most people in the world who are unhappy, either do not realize there is a problem, or do not follow through with step 2, which can be VERY difficult. Further, more do not have access to the answers or cannot deduce it themselves.. and lastly.. a huge barrier is implementation. It is so hard to break those assumptions and choose to live differently. It is hard, but remember.. in the end it is a choice. "You choose your own suffering." If you choose not to seek out the problem or ignore it, you choose to suffer. If you choose not to search for a solution, you choose to suffer. If you choose to stop choosing to implement the solution, you choose to suffer. You are NOT your thoughts, you are NOT your emotions, you are NOT your genetics, you are NOT your experiences, you are you. You and the values you hold have always been there. Seek them out and embrace them. In Zen buddhism it is said "Be who you were before you were born". Nietzsche speaks of the transformation of man to overman (a rough parallel to reaching satori or enlightenment in zen.. but not quite the same.) He speaks of the transformation from camel to lion to child. The camel is one who is burdened by values which are not his own. Such as Christians or other religious folks who lived by values which were given to them without examining them. In King's reflective judgment model (link at end), these people would be on the lowest end of being able to THINK FREELY. They assume the views of authority figures are TRUTH, without examination. But then, a few... they realize they have the power to say "no". They realize they dont have to follow the "Thou shalt" and instead say "I will", they question the values that have been given to them. These people, are the lions. They fight back and gain freedom... In King's model they would be in the middle stages. Last comes the child. The child stops saying "no" and says "yes". He says yes to life, he creates his own values and lives by them. "His spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world". These people are at the end of King's scale. So.. have you read this and has it gone over your head? It is best to get into a pattern of critical thinking, of breaking assumptions. When you interact with other people, pay close attention to yourself, what assumptions are you making about them? If a girl doesnt call you back, does that mean she doesnt like you? If a parent doesnt let you go out does that mean they hate you? If a friend of yours is late do you accuse him of not respecting your time? Examine things you do also, when someone is rude to you, do you lose control and yell at them? This isnt to say you shouldnt make judgments, judgments are important, but BE AWARE of them. The next step is to test whether you were right, ask the girl whether she was avoiding you, ask your parents why they chose not to let you go out, whatever. Try to understand situations from all angles and not just your own. Being able to see things through other's perspectives is a great tool. Because if you are able to learn these peopls frames of mind, you can interact with them differently and become more personable. When you look around the world, what assumptions do you make? Try to notice things around you that you havent noticed before. When youre at work and theres a certain protocol for how things should be done, stop and think.. "Why is this?" ask the hard questions. When you go to church, stop and think "Why am i doing this? Is this something I CHOSE to do, or is this something i ASSUMED was the right thing" I felt I was on a good path, but a friend of mine recently showed me the true power of this critical thinking. We were discussing management theory, and he posed me with such a simple question "Why are managers needed?". He exposed so many assumptions I had about leadership and the way corporations are run. But that was fine, if there is no other answer.. assumption or not it is the right way to proceed. Him, not being a business major or anything, started just thinking of a system which was the antithesis of my assumptions.. basically.. a corporation that is a group of selforganized cells working towards a common goal. This is when my memory was jogged and i realized this was a theory we had spoken about in one of my classes, a brand new theory on management called chaords. He had no previous knowledge of this and was able to deduce it through critical thinking. So, to anyone who bothers reading this, i say.. go out in the world, go into your consciousness, examine assumptions, and CHOOSE to think for yourself. I guarantee that once you discover who you are, you will be happy. King's reflective judgment model.. http://www-honors.ucdavis.edu/fh/aa/RJO.html or in chart form: http://web.missouri.edu/~wood/rjstages/rjstages.html " thanks Kt
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