Movement

After a long and much delayed time away from blogging I have returned to filling the pages.

Today's topic- Movement

As a culture we seem to always need to be moving, a theme very apparent in our society today. Everyone is going somewhere or doing something and when your not then something is wrong. I have always wondered why we will feel the need to be moving so much and why just being stuck in neutral is never an option. The only time I can say I was ever truly just in the moment and without worry about movement was for one day while I was backpacking in Montana. Dale and I arrived at St. Mary's, a very small town which was very much a tourist part of the park. We had nothing to do all day and we could not leave the area until the next day. So for about 8-10 hours we lived in a 200 yard stretch of nothing more then some restaurants and gift shops.

My overall experience was that being stuck for a moment was not so bad. It actually became quite the pastime once we got few mountain dews and sat down. It gave us time to think about our trip and ease our minds for a moment. In the future when I look back on the trip I feel that I will always remember that day for its uniqueness. How just for a moment I realized how nice it is to be doing nothing at all for once. So now as I run around doing things and trying to entertain myself, maybe one day Ill just sit around again and do absolutely nothing.

Death Be Not Proud

I was in the Boston Common as I was walking back from the Park Street T station. I had my backpack on since I had just traveled from home and I felt for a second like a summer tourist. This is partly because of the sixty degree weather in middle December, however I was in the site seeing mood. So, as I past some of the monuments I stopped to take a look and read for a second. History has always interested me. What I noticed though is that a lot of the statues, which were dedicated to a specific person began with something along the lines of "Died in 1823, blah blah blah".

Here I realized how odd it is to start a monument for someone with there death. Why do we feel the need to always preface a monument to someone with their death? In fact I am not really sure why we would even include death unless done in noble fashion. I mean do we credit death as being that important, that we feel the need to give it precedence over any other information about this man or woman. This brings me to a poem that is featured in the play "Wit" by Margaret Edson known as Holy Sonnet X.

It reads:
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.

I am thinking about turning a line of it into a tattoo possibly

Hi,
Andrew

"Soon we will be wearing suits and buying birthday cakes"

I have been thinking a lot lately about the way in which we prioritize our lives. It seems like for whatever reason, probably due to something involving logistics, we never put that which we care most about in the world first. Now of course when something major happens, usually bad, for a moment we seem to adjust where our priorities lie, but why is this the only time we do this. Why does regular daily life have a separate system of priorities. I find that a lot of times people just seem to be doing what is most logical for them to fit into society, like working a job that they may not like, or putting too much time into something they could care less about.

You may be saying well of course this is the way it is, for a world in which we all only do what we really want, there would be chaos and nothing important would get done. Now I can't wholly agree with this because I believe the important things like producing food, making a living, helping a friend would still happen in this world. All we would be doing is taking more time to do something or create something we really want. In essence we would be giving our lives purpose day in and day out.

Obviously here I am preaching to the youth or the world because this is time to do something special and make sure you haven't missed out of something you will regret. This is why I have never put grades or education over important life situations. This is generally where the youth gets confused, because good grades and writing a good paper, in a year or even a day wont matter to you. Its not going to make your life the way you have always wanted. Education is there to teach if anything that you gotta find something your passionate about and go for it with all your heart, because why not now? As my great friend Neil once said "soon we will be wearing suites and buying birthday cakes", and by this time it may be too late to get something you really wanted, and you will wish you had not spent so much time worrying about your ethics grade. IN 20 years none of that will matter but a lot of other things will.

Enjoy
Andrew

"I No Longer Feel I Have to Be James Dean"

Something I absolutely love about music and life is their innate ability to fuse together and become almost one thing, moving together. I have always thought that my life is set to music, for I carry my ipod at my side and spend at least 20% of any given day with music on. For me music is the one constant that can always keep stability. Life can be a whirlwind at times and it almost seems as though music can slow it down, speed it up, and decipher the infinite puzzle that is life. Some of my best thinking, decision making, and moments in life can be directly connected to one song or one band. It is the closest thing I have come to real magic in life. Music has the power to change things, and that my friend is what makes it so neccesary.

What I love most about music is when you find a new song and it just sticks. Whether it be because of the tempo, the vocals, the time period in which you found it or the person who introduced to it. Its almost like an absolute obession with three minutes of audio. When I come across a song like this I am usually listening to it about four or five times a day at least. This can last a week, a month, some songs I listen to almost everyday. The songs that can be played everyday and always be appropriate are the purest form of music. Music must have one thing, adaptability, along with its meaning. For me right now "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale has been screaming across my itunes nonstop for about three days now, and this is where the title of this particular blog comes from. For I actually no longer feel I have to be James Dean, well maybe just a little bit.

Enjoy the sounds of life,
Andrew

View From the Top

I am a watcher of people.

Some would confuse this for a voyeur, however I am not talking at all on a sexual level.

I am a huge advocate for experience but within the same topic I cannot help but watch others experience life. There is something magical about just viewing an action, that appears completely normal and then picking apart the subtle nuisances that make it unique. You have to ability to understand a person on a completely different level when you just focus on their most natural habits.

I have been thinking the best and quite possibly most interesting place for this action is a night shift, preferably at a desk or ideally, watching security cameras. There is some unspoken romantic mystery about the nighttime that I feel would be worth exploring. Plus the whole idea of completely flipping my sleep schedule and living almost reverse of everyone else is intriguing.

Some of the best experiences can only be obtained once you start paying attention to the experiences of others around you. This way you stop trying to understand everything about yourself and begin trying to understand everything about someone else. This is almost more intriguing then anything you will ever find out about yourself.

Just give it a try sometime, what do you think facebook really is,
Andrew

Album to check out: Blitzen Trapper- Furr