A few days ago a realized something, I rule. This is not one of those self appreciating posts where I tell you how awesome I am. I don't mean "I rule" in the sense that I am cool or hip. I mean it in the sense of the original origin of that word. I rule, I am the one who makes the laws. I control the course of this boat, these roads exist but I choose where I walk. In short I am king of my life. As always this epiphany was not JUST some intellectual coming to terms with my own being. A moment in time where I realized my humanity and all that comes with it, although it was that as well, but it went further than that. It didn't last as long as I might have hoped but for an instant I realized that the thing that inhibits me is me. Its not as if I didn't know this, I've known this for a long time. The question up to this point had always been, "How do I get from here to there?". In essence how do I remove myself from the equation, or now that I KNOW it how do I LIVE it? In that instant I LIVED it as well as knew it, I felt as though the myriad of possibilities that had been closed to me because of my own self inflicted ceiling or stale mate where torn open. I had won the battle against myself for control of my own life, however brief the victory lasted.

The trick now is to remember, remember how to rule. Somewhere somehow I willingly gave up my birthright, the one that gave me control over all of THIS. I need to return to the throne and don the crown that I have given up, its as if I had amnesia and in one blinding moment the memory of what I was came flooding back to me and with it the realization of the power I wield. However there is still a choice I face. To return to the kingdom I left, dispose of the usurper who now sits the throne and take my place as ruler, or to simply be content with being the wanderer allowing the world to pass me by without a second though to what I might be able to do about it. The latter choice which logically seems to be so craven and stupid, still holds no small appeal. It would allow me to be the passive observer and to blame the world for its own problems, no need to factor my own choice to not do something into the equation because I wouldn't have a choice cause I'm not in control, and there is nothing I have to offer the world anyway. The first choice has its own dangers though, as I take control I must be able to defend against the inevitable temptation to misuse that power as well as the temptation to sit idly by. I must rule justly and with compassion, but I must also remember that kings must rule with scepter AND sword. Shepherds have both the rod and the staff and you must not neglect either if you expect to keep your herd.

Things as they stand...

...or fall for that matter.

Its been an interesting past few weeks. School started, I now have what I consider the greatest job I could have ever asked for, things in my life have started to become hectic and unordered. I'm working at a Department of Energy lab now doing sort of grunt work for the researchers there. But I love my job and the people I work for. I'm not sure why it is that I find loading the dishwasher for them or making media for them or defrosting freezers for them so enjoyable. Maybe its because they thank me for things that I just assume are part of my job description. I think that's part of it. There is genuine sense of gratitude you get when someone says they love you after you have defrosted a freezer for them, and they have that look on their face like you have no idea how much your actions have helped them. To top it off I'm going fulltime at school. Taking classes at both my community college and the real college way on the other side of town, which means my days are rather jam packed.

I feel like walking out my door driving to the airport and catching a flight to anywhere but here, preferably Europe or the Sahara. Two very desperate places I know, and what an odd thing to say at that. I just really have this strong urge to get out of Dodge. I won't be going anywhere till I've finished up my BA, but it seems feelings don't wait. I also feel like I'm in a very tenuous time right now emotionally spiritually and physically. I got sick this week and have had this same cold for almost two weeks now, and it seems as if emotionally I'm back on ye olde roller coaster yet again. I don't even have an idea where I am spiritually. I think that's a sign I need to step back and get my bearings, its also probably a cause of my current emotional state. However between work and school I'm having a hard time making time for things of a spiritual nature, which I am constantly reminded is more a function of my unwillingness to make that time and less a function of time itself.

* I refuse to settle for anything less than my dreams and aspirations, the path that God has shown me to walk out, my destiny.

* I refuse to allow myself to use others/situations/or problems to become excuses and in turn justification for me becoming complacent with where I am or what I am doing if I am not where I know God wants me to be.

* I refuse to allow others negativity to stop me from pursuing these things, instead I will use it to galvanize myself into action.

* I will make every effort to work in tandem with the plans and desires of God. Defaulting to him in every area of my life and listening to him for direction, but I will not by any means use his silence as an excuse to stop pursuing him or the goals he has given me.

* I will make every effort to learn from my experiences and the experiences of others, to learn the lessons that God would teach me and to learn them well so that I will not have to repeat my own mistakes or the mistakes that other people have made.

Mantras

Ah mantras, a favorite subject of mine as it seems to be an easy indicator of a persons personality. You can easily tell who someone is by the "self talk" they use. Whether they are shy or open or pessimistic or optimistic. Not like you really need to hear them say things to themselves to recognize those things. The thing I like most about mantras is their ability to change someone by changing their perspective. Recently I've caught myself using the phrase "and so it begins" a lot. Its a rather odd mantra and I'll be the first to tell you so. Not sure why its turned up or how, being who I am though I am as always inclined to find the spiritual explanation and assume its just the big man upstairs trying to tell me something. Its certainly some interesting self talk though, the more I analyze it the more I like it though. It seems to me like the J man has been trying to get me to emphasize beginnings. Trying to get me to see failures more as beginnings rather than endings, to get me to rise above to get me to begin. Movement is movement no matter how its accomplished. Whether we cross the finish line in a full out sprint or we crawl across it dragging our exhausted bodies behind us we still finished. 2008 was supposed to be a year of "new beginnings" so I'm not so surprised to find that this mantra popped up when it did, which I've only realized just now as I'm writing this. So heres to a shift in perspective may it bring us ever closer to seeing things the way He does.

Comparison breeds Contempt

**Before I begin let me digress. Am I the only one that reads others blogs and gets inspired? I don't get inspired in the traditional sense of the word. Instead I simply begin to see the things that where always there to be said. The things I write here are my life lessons, the things I've done, seen, heard and learned from (or simple revelation from the Great Unknowable lived out in day to day life). Sometimes its easy to trivialize these things, and I think as we go through life we don't "forget" these things much in the same way you never "forget" how to ride your bike, although I do think we consciously forget, and I tend to do that.

I think our life lessons work the way the Great Divines word is written on our hearts, I think it works more like muscle memory. Muscle memory is the idea that once you've done something enough times it becomes ingrained in your brain and becomes associated with that particular movement and sometimes specific equipment, so the idea is once your muscles start doing the movements again you find that even though you can't specifically recall how to do those things your muscles are naturally inclined to do them. So for example a basketball team runs a certain play lots and lots of times so that they will remember how to run it without even having to think about it.

I think this is true for our life lessons and the Great Divines word, it becomes ingrained in us and associated with certain situations so that when we face adversity we find ourselves making certain decisions without hesitation, I guess conscience is really the word for it but I feel the word doesn't convey the whole thought. I think others blogs work to bring out those life lessons to the forefront, for me at least. Wow, I really digressed pretty far, ON WITH THE SHOW!**

"Comparison breeds contempt.", another personal mantra of mine. The Great Divine told me this once, and it took me days before I realized how true this was and exactly how far the rabbit hole went with this one. The first time you hear those words you kind of listen to it the way you listen to music, you simply listen to the words but don't really pay attention to what the song is saying. I think its because there are SO many sayings like this and after a while they all muddle together and we build up an immunity to them. Once you start to really analyze whats being said though and apply it to your own life you start to realize how true this is. At first I thought it was only a one way thing, sort of a "you shouldn't consider yourself better than others" thing, then I realized it goes both ways. No matter what the outcome of the comparison it always ends in contempt. "That person makes more money, has a better car, looks better than me etc etc etc." Once you start thinking that, it doesn't take long for contempt to settle in. At first thats as far as I took it and I put forth the effort to apply the principal to my life.

Then the Great Divine took it deeper, showing me that I should be careful not to compare my SPIRITUALITY against others as it also leads to contempt. The concept is a hard one to follow, as we live in a society that requires empirical evidence as well as a way to measure their success against yours aka the zero's on your paycheck, the kind of car you drive, and the list goes on. Because of that we can find ourselves trying to find an empirical way to measure our spirituality against others and we can find ourselves hating others at church and having a hard time figuring out why. Then we find ourselves disillusioned and hating church and the people who go there. Its hard for me to keep myself from comparing myself against others as I'm a very empirical sort of person. I like to have something to compare against and its easy for me to fall into the trap of comparing myself with others. The Unknowable has called us to love one another, and in his world there is no first place. Try as we might we can't earn what he gives us and we certainly aren't deserving of it either. Its interesting when you realize how deep seeded comparison is in your life and how it affects how you view others. I just hope I can live a life without comparison and not fall into the rabbit hole that leads to contempt and hatred in my life.

Commence Digestion

I have a few fetishes one of which is the sight and sound of raw talent. So lately I've been watching "The Black Cab Sessions" an idea which when I first heard of it literally "floored" me. Basically its a group of people in the U.K. who take recording equipment, meet a band in the middle of London, hail one of the cities obligatory black cabbies and ride around filming the band playing a song. Its a one take kinda thing. I've pretty much watched them all so far (I did skip around a bit and I can't say I've really seen them all) and without sounding too much like a gamer I will say that it is indeed "epic" (or "purple" for those in the know). I think the whole "back seat of a cab" venue has its own sort of ambiance that you can't really get anywhere else, and its nicely portrayed in the videos. http://www.blackcabsessions.com/ here is the link if your interested in listening to some good stuff, its nice to see that they are taking both local U.K. bands as well as some American bands. I prefer listening to the new talent like Eugene Mcguiness or Luke Toms who dresses like Galager but sounds amazing in my book, but I think its nice to hear more well known bands like The Kooks and The New Pornographers in that sort of a setting as well. On top of this there is this video "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Vtr8i87Do" which is awesome, no you can't hear what hes saying in the beginning but you can hear the song which is the important part. I'm fascinated by peoples ability to set music to words. Generally speaking words are not the problem for me its the music that I have hard time meshing with what I want to say.

The other fetish I have is this weird fascination with online communities, or maybe a better description would be "the power of communities to create things that companies couldn't have thought of in their wildest dreams". A fine example of this is the game Counter Strike, which is in fact a MOD for another popular game Half Life. A MOD in essence is a game built upon someone else's code. You essentially take the code and rework it to make it do what you want. Then add original content you made, models for the characters in game, skins, new sounds, make your own maps and then voila. With every mod you generally release it and it either bombs and no one plays it or you get a small following of people who play it. With Counter Strike it did so well that Valve (the company who made Half Life) acquired the rights to it and began shipping it as a completely separate game. I believe the people who worked on it are now working within the gaming industry as well. Well apparently something like this has been done with a flight simulator and upon hearing this I was intrigued. Apparently there is a community of people who go online everyday and fly planes NOT ONLY do they fly planes there are also a select group within the community who act as air traffic controllers, not only that, the entire system is set up exactly like real life. So you can't just jump in the game and take off. You need to check the weather, make sure your flight plan is worked out and THEN send it in to get clearance so you can even take off and leave the run way. Apparently you can't even BECOME an air traffic controller without having first taken the test to get your license to actually do the job in game. The way it all works is through a network set up that allows you to talk to the air traffic controllers in the game, a program called "sqwakbox(sp?)". But the whole thing is player run, so the servers are set up and maintained by someone somewhere and of course the program is all coded and distributed freely. Personally I thought it was the coolest thing ever, I love peoples imagination and companies willingness to let people mess around with their code always allows for nice surprises. Which is why I love any game with a map editor. I've tried my hand at mapping and modding for several games but my inability to follow through with projects always bites me in the arse. So I'm left with little to show for it. Which is why most of the ideas I have are shelved.

This is an odd sort of post, no deep philosophical or religious things to talk about no insights or revelations really. I was challenged that I hadn't written anything in a while however so I figured I would remedy that situation. I'm still on the look out for a job so if you know anyone hiring thats paying 10 bucks an hour or more is flexible around school schedules and can give me close if not full time let me know.

Showing Up

So yesterday before bed I was laying there talking with the J-Man and I was doing what I usually do: breaking down all of my requests into concise form. Its a nice habit I think, it helps me more than it helps the J-Man obviously considering he knows what I'm going to ask before I ask it. However it allows me to understand myself alot better, rather than simply understanding that I want something I have a greater understanding of the reasons I want that something to begin with.

The first thing that struck me was that none of my requests mattered, that in fact I had asked for all of those things multiple times and the J-Man had not misplaced them or forgotten about them (another lesson in understanding that he works on his own timetable, not on mine). More to the point I wondered what I should be asking him and the words "What do you want me to do?" came out (before that I had thought about saying "What do you need me to do?" but realized that he doesn't "need" anything from me). I had asked that quite a few times before, this certainly wasn't the first or the last time. But for some reason they seemed to hold more value this time around, I guess its like telling someone you love them simply out of habit and telling someone you love them just before one of you dies. The telling comes from some deep seated part of you and it conveys so much more through the words. It felt like this time I had really meant it, had really wanted to know this time around. He of course obliged, not simply answering me with words but in an odd sort of way (which for him is pretty normal).

I began to wonder what it would be like if he was a physical being, if our relationship was built on physical pretenses. I imagined calling up my friends to play some poker and calling up the J-Man to join us, or playing Catan with Shadraq and the J-Man and whoever else we could get a hold of. Then I made the connection, even though I find that my relationship with him has so far diverged from what anyone would call "normal" I still put religious constraints on it. I'm still using a religious measure to try to figure out if our relationship is "good"or if we are "moving forward". I think its a realization that in the end he asked us to love him. He never asked us to "make it work" he didn't ask us to "grow up" or keep some sort of tab on our relationship so he would know were we where. Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened, the only thing required of us in those statements is that we show up. He wants us to call him up, to set aside time for him. Time and effort on our part is all hes looking for, which is weird to think about. I imagine that in heaven the only record keeping that he does as far as measuring his success with us is keeping a record of the time we commit to him, and I'm not talking about the religious type of commitment where you spend 4 hours in intercession. I mean just sitting there thinking about him, or shooting the breeze telling him how your day was.