Five days, three continents and four countries later I have arrived. Not nearly at the final destination on my itenerary, but at least in the same region. I found that instantly away from the distractions that home brings, I've slipped back into a cool and calm stance on what must and has to be done. I'm enthralled on the plate of readiness and certainly itching as ever to get on with it.
Being home only a week ago, around family was a great send off. I can't believe how great of a family I have. So caring, and so close in ways that I rarely see other families. I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to when I was home, but that's the way it normally goes. With so many good people in my life, I struggle to find time to visit with all of them.
But here I sit, surrounded again with infamous smells and culture. I realize how different my attitude has adjusted, and how idly ready my mind, soul and hands have become. Work ethic will be unmatched along with my determination. Ready is a word that only resembles what it is I truly am.
I will write as often as I can. Submerged in myself once again, free for thought and opinion expression.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Same is Different
The feeling in my stomach, makes me a little queezy. I've gotten off track, allowed my mind to start hoping again. It's returned emotions that I haven't felt in sometime, and for the first time in the age old cliche, I'm scared. It's not a feeling that I'm too familiar with, an otherwise oak I am floundering with this emotion I can't lasso.
There are many reasons that this could be brought about, I'm sure my upcoming deployment is one them. It's hard to be honest with myself, and with you. It's not easy to admit, in this word which has seen the fall of a man's stature abolished within the ethics and code. I strive to remain unyielding to this demise, and yet hear I sit afraid. A future, I had seen in the near horizon. A finish line beaming with opportunity and beginning. Perhaps while I was simply biding my time, so was I biding my emotions.
The feeling is a very uneasy one. Sickening really. It's immortality decreasing, becoming further from grasp as I grow and become more of an adult. It's truly understanding the weight in which I bring to the world, and how scary a concept it is that I do indeed have impact on a world I would otherwise consider to be without contact.
Harms way, is all perception. Placing myself in it, or an exponentially greater idea of it is simply creating a false reality of the sense of that phrase. I am in as much harms way now and resigned to my fate as much as any other time in my life. Life is a strange thing, no matter who we pray to or what we believe, we will never know what outcome will come of our choices and whether or not that if we were to take a different path if we wouldn't arrive at the same place we never intended to go, but instead destined to be. Of course we all point our finger of the road of life always ending with the dead end of death. But this is a narrowing point of view with all things considered.
My religious or spirtual beliefs are not coinciding or aligning with one specific stereotype or another, but I seem to have a keen sense that we are not alone. That the world isn't magnificent. That life, and death are not the end all be all. I suppose looking forward I have an infinite amount of possibilities. There are some great things that I can do in life and really my biggest fear is; will I be humble and content enough to stop when I reach my goals. So that I may live in happiness, not yearning not reaching for more and never feeling truly accomplished, even with all that I have. The perspective seems at least difficult to voice and certainly confuses me. My fear from death is what I will leave behind. What legacy? What of me will stick with others? Who will I leave behind that I will no longer be able to affect?
Those questions, so broad and not very direct. But they're so truthful in their essence of what we think about death. We spin our catch phrases and cliches and even almost believe them. You're in a better place, you're with God. We buy them like the Wal*Mart rollbacks we become infatuated with commercially. I can't say for sure what happens to us when we perish, but I am certain that it could happen at any time. So why this sudden trepidation? This sudden fear? This overwhelming, sickening feeling that has haunted me, made me older the last few weeks? My immortality, peeled like the skin of a snake and left. Gone, like dust in the wind. Life is suddenly real. Death, no longer a falacy.
Who's to say what we are to say, when we are to say it?
There are many reasons that this could be brought about, I'm sure my upcoming deployment is one them. It's hard to be honest with myself, and with you. It's not easy to admit, in this word which has seen the fall of a man's stature abolished within the ethics and code. I strive to remain unyielding to this demise, and yet hear I sit afraid. A future, I had seen in the near horizon. A finish line beaming with opportunity and beginning. Perhaps while I was simply biding my time, so was I biding my emotions.
The feeling is a very uneasy one. Sickening really. It's immortality decreasing, becoming further from grasp as I grow and become more of an adult. It's truly understanding the weight in which I bring to the world, and how scary a concept it is that I do indeed have impact on a world I would otherwise consider to be without contact.
Harms way, is all perception. Placing myself in it, or an exponentially greater idea of it is simply creating a false reality of the sense of that phrase. I am in as much harms way now and resigned to my fate as much as any other time in my life. Life is a strange thing, no matter who we pray to or what we believe, we will never know what outcome will come of our choices and whether or not that if we were to take a different path if we wouldn't arrive at the same place we never intended to go, but instead destined to be. Of course we all point our finger of the road of life always ending with the dead end of death. But this is a narrowing point of view with all things considered.
My religious or spirtual beliefs are not coinciding or aligning with one specific stereotype or another, but I seem to have a keen sense that we are not alone. That the world isn't magnificent. That life, and death are not the end all be all. I suppose looking forward I have an infinite amount of possibilities. There are some great things that I can do in life and really my biggest fear is; will I be humble and content enough to stop when I reach my goals. So that I may live in happiness, not yearning not reaching for more and never feeling truly accomplished, even with all that I have. The perspective seems at least difficult to voice and certainly confuses me. My fear from death is what I will leave behind. What legacy? What of me will stick with others? Who will I leave behind that I will no longer be able to affect?
Those questions, so broad and not very direct. But they're so truthful in their essence of what we think about death. We spin our catch phrases and cliches and even almost believe them. You're in a better place, you're with God. We buy them like the Wal*Mart rollbacks we become infatuated with commercially. I can't say for sure what happens to us when we perish, but I am certain that it could happen at any time. So why this sudden trepidation? This sudden fear? This overwhelming, sickening feeling that has haunted me, made me older the last few weeks? My immortality, peeled like the skin of a snake and left. Gone, like dust in the wind. Life is suddenly real. Death, no longer a falacy.
Who's to say what we are to say, when we are to say it?
Friday, May 4, 2012
You're Just a Number
The sands of time quickly drain through the holes of life. The calendar dates literally crumble making me suddenly aware of a youth slowly fading. I'm sore mostly every day and the things I used to be able to do easily, devastate me. This life has been intense, and though I realize this, I can't complain.
My job has had me busy, and losing the time to think and to write has been painstaking in my ability to address what I consistently compartmentalize; the stresses of life and adulthood. I dreamt a marvelous past last night, and had wished that when I woke up it had been true. Summer, my favorite season until I spent a few in the North Carolina heat, was it's normal California bright. The way the sun playfully bounced off of every piece of beautiful leaf, flower and garden in the backyard of my Sylmar house brought me the loins of joy I once knew. I was in our pool, around my brother and sister, my cousins and the summers we used to waste away in laughter and smiles. The dream, that scrawny kid I was, the family close by and all the endless summers we spent; they're merely just a memory of the past.
I find it hard sometimes to think about those times, without responsibility, without worry. They seem distant and often foreign compared to what adulthood I have taken on. I constantly strive to get better, to work harder and be a better person. A better adult. I've realized that buying into whatever it is I'm doing or trying to do is the most important part of changing. I've changed plenty about myself that I thought would be tough. It's always tough at first, especially when you come to the realization that you are not exactly who you thought you were. Some people just accept the fact that that is who they are and that they cannot change that. Others, like myself, see those weaknesses, or dislikes about ourselves and we work hard to change them.
These changes don't come easy. Mostly I have found that I have been stuck in the pattern of doing things a certain way, and when 'set in those ways' it becomes difficult to break those patterns. But using that excuse is a contradiction of the very thing that I want to do; use excuses, reasons for why I couldn't change. It starts small. I tell myself that I want to change this, and the reasoning why. Most of the time it's through a new perspective that I've realized my short comings, whether that's my own perspective or someone else's. It's the ability to change perspective that helps you to realize what it is you want to change, and then it comes down to one thing, and really one thing only; self-discipline.
Self-discipline is a huge part of changing yourself. It's getting the mixed vegetables instead of fries. It's a commitment, and one that is so easy to justify breaking anytime it's convienient. If you had the self-discipline to do what was right everytime, eat healthier foods, spend your money on only what you need, exercise daily, you would live a great life. Unfortunately I fail myself almost daily in at least one area of my self discipline. I take the easy way out, and constantly reprimand myself later for doing so. But overtime, of wanting to do the same thing, buying into what I need to do, instead of what I want to do. Maybe why I scrutinize smokers who say they're quitting, but just weening off with the occassional here and there is because I recognize this fault within myself. That I simply can't be disciplined enough to not eat candy, to not drink beer, to not drink soda, to not eat fast food. I bow to the convience of life, walk the easier road, break my own rules.
I have to realize my life isn't running around in the backyard and playing hockey with my cousins. It's not about carelessness and doing whatever I want. Not without sacrifice, not without hard work and commitment. Putting in my time now, getting in good shape, eating right, learning new things daily, pushing myself to constantly be better. With all this understood, and all this being said there is still one big question mark in the many that float around my life. What direction do I want to go? What direction do I need to go?
May the fourth be with you...
My job has had me busy, and losing the time to think and to write has been painstaking in my ability to address what I consistently compartmentalize; the stresses of life and adulthood. I dreamt a marvelous past last night, and had wished that when I woke up it had been true. Summer, my favorite season until I spent a few in the North Carolina heat, was it's normal California bright. The way the sun playfully bounced off of every piece of beautiful leaf, flower and garden in the backyard of my Sylmar house brought me the loins of joy I once knew. I was in our pool, around my brother and sister, my cousins and the summers we used to waste away in laughter and smiles. The dream, that scrawny kid I was, the family close by and all the endless summers we spent; they're merely just a memory of the past.
I find it hard sometimes to think about those times, without responsibility, without worry. They seem distant and often foreign compared to what adulthood I have taken on. I constantly strive to get better, to work harder and be a better person. A better adult. I've realized that buying into whatever it is I'm doing or trying to do is the most important part of changing. I've changed plenty about myself that I thought would be tough. It's always tough at first, especially when you come to the realization that you are not exactly who you thought you were. Some people just accept the fact that that is who they are and that they cannot change that. Others, like myself, see those weaknesses, or dislikes about ourselves and we work hard to change them.
These changes don't come easy. Mostly I have found that I have been stuck in the pattern of doing things a certain way, and when 'set in those ways' it becomes difficult to break those patterns. But using that excuse is a contradiction of the very thing that I want to do; use excuses, reasons for why I couldn't change. It starts small. I tell myself that I want to change this, and the reasoning why. Most of the time it's through a new perspective that I've realized my short comings, whether that's my own perspective or someone else's. It's the ability to change perspective that helps you to realize what it is you want to change, and then it comes down to one thing, and really one thing only; self-discipline.
Self-discipline is a huge part of changing yourself. It's getting the mixed vegetables instead of fries. It's a commitment, and one that is so easy to justify breaking anytime it's convienient. If you had the self-discipline to do what was right everytime, eat healthier foods, spend your money on only what you need, exercise daily, you would live a great life. Unfortunately I fail myself almost daily in at least one area of my self discipline. I take the easy way out, and constantly reprimand myself later for doing so. But overtime, of wanting to do the same thing, buying into what I need to do, instead of what I want to do. Maybe why I scrutinize smokers who say they're quitting, but just weening off with the occassional here and there is because I recognize this fault within myself. That I simply can't be disciplined enough to not eat candy, to not drink beer, to not drink soda, to not eat fast food. I bow to the convience of life, walk the easier road, break my own rules.
I have to realize my life isn't running around in the backyard and playing hockey with my cousins. It's not about carelessness and doing whatever I want. Not without sacrifice, not without hard work and commitment. Putting in my time now, getting in good shape, eating right, learning new things daily, pushing myself to constantly be better. With all this understood, and all this being said there is still one big question mark in the many that float around my life. What direction do I want to go? What direction do I need to go?
May the fourth be with you...
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