something big

I just want to be a part of something really big, really important, and really exciting. I want Big Things to Happen.

I was watching TV, vaguely interested in the Hamas election victory being covered. And then they showed the crowd of Palestinians waving flags, cheering, shouting and laughing and crying. Don't worry, I'm not about to don an abaya and join the ranks of middle-Eastern political terrorists. The cause isn't what I'm talking about. But the rippling sea of humanity, the excitement, the passion, the indignation, the fervor and the final consummation of a long-awaited victory are certainly not unique to terrorists or to the Middle East.

It's simply the thought of being part of an event, or an idea, so much larger than yourself that you might even forget why you started in the first place. The idea swallows you, and becomes part of you, until you don't think much about anything else. Maybe you become irrational and so loyal to the cause you're willing to do anything, including give your life. That's the mark of a truly driven individual: the cold but invigorating realization -- demonstrated with the act of giving your life in service or death -- that your existence, as Humphrey Bogart put it, "don't amount to a hill of beans" in comparison to the greatness of The Cause.

It's pure goosebumpy passion, drive, devotion, commitment and exclusive loyalty which drive people to do things they normally wouldn't. To an outsider anyways, this sounds a lot like being in love.

But what would compel someone to think outside themselves, to disregard their own lives? Certainly emotions have a lot to do with it. I don't know if this makes sense, but the gift of a life is definitely not normal. That's why ideas are so big -- bigger than one person, bigger than a state or country or all the people that have ever lived -- because they make people do un-normal things, outside the natural state of equilibrium. Ideas are spiritual; they define lives and end lives; without them, people die inside. And that, my friends, is why it is so utterly crucial to choose the right Causes.

hmmm....I guess I didn't mean to get all philosophical on you. I just want to be part of Something Big...and the terrorists on TV just quickened it. And I have a feeling there's Something Big on my horizon, although I don't know what it is yet.

I just wish it would happen soon...because I'm getting bored.

Not a lot happened???

Nothing much happened this weekend.

That was the first thing I typed. LAAAAME. I really should think things through before I write them. So what I meant was, nothing much happened in my life -- certainly something much happened somewhere, to someone. We tend to view the events of the entire world anthropocentrically (if that isn't a word, it should be), with ourselves as the center. How silly. So as far as my weekend went, when I say nothing much happened, I mean nothing much happened to me, and nothing much into which I can read significance. We can't always discern what events are important and trivial while we're in the middle of them. Perhaps this weekend you met the person who would run you off the road next week; maybe you met your future spouse; maybe you had a minor thought which will eventually grow and define the next decade of your life.

So a revision of the first sentence: According to my interpretation of the events of the last two days, and within the anthropocentric context of my own personal life, nothing much happened. :)

I had written some other things about [here], but in light of the above revelation and a renewed contempt for empty uselessness, I have deleted it. :) So that's all I have for you right now, but I do have two pictures to share with you from this week. Cheers!

we had Chinese food on Sunday....mmmm.....

I always drive by this old house when I get off work, and I finally decided to take a picture of it. This day was so grey and drizzly that you could hardly tell the difference between the original picture and the black&white one.)

Here's something I wrote a few days ago but forgot to post :)

As of Friday, I am myself minus 4 wisdom teeth. I still look like a chipmunk and feel like an invalid (thanks to the evil medicine they prescribed). Here's a basic timeline of the first part of my weekend:

Friday, 12 noon: Arrive at the doc's office.
12:45: Finally get called into the operating room.
1:30: Finish pre-op, which consisted of stabbing me with a needle and plugging me into four different machines. All I think can about are the stories of people's anesthaesia not working right and waking up during the operations.
1:30-1:50: The doctor hasn't come yet, so I watch the heart monitor I'm hooked into and figure out how to make it do different things, by holding my breath and flexing all my muscles. Cool.
1:50: The doctor finally arrives and puts the magic juice into my IV.
1:52: He asks "How do you feel?" ....everything is fuzzy and dream-like...
2:00: AAAAGH!!!! I wake up IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SURGERY...asking what's going on and wondering why I'm staring into the doctor's armpit. The nurse keeps telling me to close my eyes, but I'm far too curious about the whirring drill and four hands that are in my mouth. I couldn't really feel what they were doing, but I heard crunching and twisting around in my mouth. HELP ME!!!! I think I must have passed out.
2:18: They take the secret sauce out of my IV, and I sit up and marvel at the intensity of the colors of my jeans and sweater. (It has something to do with the oxygen they gave me.)
4:00: We get home after waiting for my prescription. I go to bed.
5:30: I wake up with a puddle of blood on my pillow. Gross. But Dad has just brought me flowers and a Frappuccino so life is looking up. At this point I go upstairs and lay on the couch, but I don't get up except to run into the bathroom and puke twice. (This is not looking good for Homestar Runner.)
7:00: Remember the fondue party I'm missing. Fall asleep again. Sleep on the couch all night.

Back to today. my mouth hurts really bad, and the label on the bottle of painkillers I desperately wanted required that I ingest food...which I couldn't keep down for anything. So I spent the first evening in pain. I sneaked a piece of a Taco Dorito and chewed it with my front cheeks like a beaver, but apart from that I they only let me have a smoothie, some smashed potatoes and cream of wheat. Blaaaaah. And despite the fact that I've had a package of frozen (and re-re-re-frozen) peas laying on my head all day, I still look like I've stored the last several pounds of potatoes in my cheeks for later.

Movies I've watched this weekend:
Gone with the Wind (both tapes, like 4 hours!)
Cinderella Man
Bridge Over the River Kwai
A Knight's Tale
Kate & Leopold
...also several football games and the Antiques Roadshow.

Today I felt a little better (I stopped taking the prescription medicine and switched to a tasty cocktail of Nyquil and Tylenol) and was even able to sleep in my own bed last night. The Fam ate pizza for lunch and they even got my favorite kind, but I couldn't eat much. They laughed and pointed at my swollen cheeks as they stuffed MY pizza down their faces. I made eggdrop soup and burned my tongue on it like I normally do.

I don't have to work tomorrow, but I have a big day Tuesday, so I hope the swelling goes down a LOT.

I hope this isn't what it's like to be old.

I'm sorry this isn't very well written, but I'm tired and everything hurts.

some thoughts on the nature of music

I've been thinking about the general nature of music a lot over the past few days for several reasons. I remembered something I'd written a while back on that same topic, so I disinterred it from a stack of folders and put it up on my other blog. But far more people read this blog, and I particularly enjoy the idea I wrote about, so I thought I'd share a link to it. Let me know what you think or if you have any thoughts of your own (Scotty, I thought you'd especially enjoy it.) Thanks guys... :)

"A 5 is easy to change into a 6."

...This was one of my first thoughts of 2006. You know, when I accidentally write 2005 a thousand times, I can easily convert the 5 to a 6. Deep, indeed.

So a friend and I randomly decided to get some 2002 City on a Hill alumni together and have a New Year's party. But we didn't decide that until we were talking online late Friday night (I guess it was early Saturday)...so we called some people and learned about a party one of our friends was having. I picked up my friend about 5 yesterday and went to the party, at a farmhouse in Nowhere, Midwest with a lot of people, and only a few of whom I know. It was a good party and I wish I could have enjoyed myself more than I did, but for some reason I was in a leave-me-alone mood, and wished I could retreat into a back room and play the guitar or something. I tried to be a good sport though, because hey, it's New Year's Eve, I'm at a fun party, and there are a lot of cool people here that I'd like to get to know. But I probably came across as bored/annoyed/fake, because I suppose I was all three of those at some point or another. I guess I like parties as much as the next person, but I need space/air and there wasn't a lot of either. But a few of us (a smaller group, thank goodness) stayed up pretty late talking. And instead of driving home then, I used my coat as a pillow and slept for a few hours. I got home about 11 this morning and am currently in that pseudo-eloquent, philosophical, honest fog that descends upon me when I'm overly tired, have had plenty of coffee, and have a lot of pesty concepts in my Thinking Queue, waiting for attention.

In other news, I put several new pictures up on my photoblog. Here are some others that I took while on Christmas vacation in the Lovely North...

Frost on my window on the way there.

Water dripping off the old swingset.

On my grampa's land.

This is chocolate pudding. :)

Snowball fight (notice the snowballs in the air...a lesser photographer would be running away at this point [and a greater photographer might have actually focused the camera]).

Thanks for reading everyone...Happy New Year!!