A Different View

Some of my favorite types of books are Autobiographies. I love reading about those crazy experiences that set people apart. At the same time, I very much enjoy the stories that ground the author, and make them part of the normal club. It can be both exciting and disheartening to read how someone's life plays out. Autobiographies however, aren't always books.

I recently came across a site about a man who documented his life through a daily Polaroid for close to 20 years. Actually the site is more of a blogged translation of the photos pictured here. Life is full of surprises, and there is most definitely an unexpected ending in this one. If you have the time, I suggest clicking on the second link first before reading through the cheat sheet (a.k.a. the first link).

I keep thinking about the meaning life lately. It's obviously a short, delicate, yet miraculous thing. I'm having a lot of trouble forming a view on something I have so many unanswered questions about. I mean, what is the purpose of life, the purpose of my life? Is there any purpose at all? How significant am I really to this world, to everything?

Watching this video didn't exactly help, but it brought upon a view that was much needed.

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

It's amazing how this video put so much into perspective for me. I always knew we were small specs on a rotating sphere in space, but you don't always believe what you know. What I'm getting at is that you see the sun rise and set, same as the moon, but I don't think I've ever truly felt like we were doing all the rotating, more so that things were rotating around us. This video has definitely turned on a few light bulbs. The time lapse is so quick that you actually get to see how we are spinning in circles, and everything else is staying put. Not the other way around.

Anyways, the video is by Till Credner, a very dedicated observer of the sky. Till is also part of a group of observationist who have come together to blog their ideas and questions about the atmosphere and all it's crazy mysteries. You can read their thoughts and discoveries here. Lastly, he has another site, which he runs with a friend, filled with digital documentation of the sky and space. This is the website, but I recommend the blog more.

"We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams; Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams."

Sometimes it's really hard to put my thoughts and feelings into words everyone can understand. When I can't write or talk it out, I simply sit back, listen to some music, and feel what I need to feel. Occasionally, a song plays that says everything better then I thought or felt it.

I decided on these days to just post the lyrics that bring me to such epiphanies. Even better, today I decided to make a playlist so that if you'd like, you can hear these very songs.

I Believe In Symmetry - Bright Eyes

Some plans were made and rice was thrown
A house was built, a baby born
How time can move both fast and slow
Amazes me
And so I raise my glass to symmetry
To the second hand and its accuracy
To the actual size of everything
The desert is the sand
You can't hold it in your hand
It won't bow to your demands
There's no difference you can make
There's no difference you can make
And if it seems like an accident
A collage of senselessness
You weren't looking hard enough
I wasn't looking hard enough at it

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who makes love to the flower bed
And dies in the first freeze
Oh I want to learn such simple things
No politics, no history
Till what I want and what I need
Can finally be the same

I just got myself to blame
Leave everything up to fate
When there's choices I could make
When there's choices I could make
And now my heart needs a polygraph
Always so eager to pack my bags
When I really wanna stay
When I really wanna stay

When I wanna stay
When I wanna stay
When I wanna stay
When I wanna stay

The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can't protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive

An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks
Not to accept its fate, that's faith
There is happiness in death
You get to the next one
You get to the next one down the line
You get to the next one
You get to the next one down the line

The levity of longing that
Distills each dream inside my head
By morning watered down forget
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish

From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line

You get to the next one
You get to the next one down the line
You get to the next one
You get to the next one down the line

"He is much better off without me."

61 years, 2 months, and 16 days ago Evelyn McHale took her life by jumping from the top of the Empire State Building. Minutes later Robert Wiles snapped this...


This may be one of the most disturbingly beautiful pictures I have ever seen. Its amazing how peaceful this 23 year old woman looks just minutes after her lowest of lows.

...

www.scad.edu

We don't talk because we have so much to say.

Now At Last - Feist

Now at last I know
What a fool I've been
For have lost the last love
I should ever win

Now at last I see
How my heart was blind
To the joys before me
That I left behind

When the wind was fresh on the hills
And the stars were new in the sky
And the lark was held in the still
Where was I? Where was I?

When the spring is cold
Where do robins go?
What makes winter lonely ?
Now at last I know.

When the wind was fresh on the hills
And the stars were new in the sky
And the lark was held in the still
Where was I? Where was I?

When the spring is cold
Where do robins go?
What makes winter lonely ?
Now at last I know.

Ignorance is bliss.

best advice ive ever been given.

There's not enough time in the world.

Recently I've been slowly developing a fear of time. It's been passing by so fast that I've grown worried that I'm not getting the most of it. Actually, I know I'm not making the most of it. Really though, who does? Because I work so much now, I really haven't had much time to sit down and think. Lately, when I do get a chance, I tend to look back on the past 4 years or so. So much yet so little has happened. That sounds confusing I know. I guess what I'm getting at is a lot of the things I thought were going to happen didn't, but in that there's been a lot of unexpected surprises as well. I know life comes at you fast, but I haven't experienced it as much as I have since I've been in college. Since college (we can even narrow that down to my transfer to Champlain) I've experienced the following...

• Death of a close loved one - Even if I'm partically referring to my dog (my other dog and great grandmother recently passed), I was very close to him and I don't think I could ever repay him for the loyalty and love he showed for me.
  
• Debt - I don't mean school loans here, although they've been quite a heavy load as well.
  
• Living with roommates - In the dorms and in my new apartment. Either way it's been quite an experience.
• Living completely by myself - We all know that was the weirdest situation I could have gotten into.
• Turning 21! - I think I might actually drink less then I did before I was of age. I have however developed a recent tolerance to beer. Blue Moon owns my fridge.
• Complete Independence - From grocery shopping to rent. All on my own.
• Working Full Time - The downfall to the above.
• Promotion - I've gotten a raise or maybe been able to work in a different area of a job, but I've never been actually promoted.
• Being in charge of fellow employees - With the promotion came power. Now for once, I get to tell the people I work with what to do.
• Experimentation - I'm referring to substances here, although the older I get, the more people seem to want to kiss you on the mouth rather than your cheek.

Obviously there's a lot more but this list covers the important stuff. I didn't really plan on making a list till I got to thinking out loud. I just wish that life didn't come down to time, which in the end gets filled up with work. So really, living is to work? I hope that one day I can turn that around so that work is living.

That doesn't make any sense.

Anyways... Bonnaroo was good. I think we had too high of expectations and it wasn't able to live up to last year, but in the end, it was still good. As you can see, I've also gotten better at creating run-on sentences. The yota is fixed as well. I'm proud to say that I DO NOT miss the nagging comments, cheers from frat boys, and shrieks of terror from McDonalds employees over how loud it was. Really, it could be 5 miles from complete breakdown, and I would still drive the thing those last 5. AND speaking of time, I would like to apologize to anyone looking forward to seeing me home at the diner monday. I simply didn't have enough.