America: From the Passenger Seat of a Car

I made it.

Across the country in 11 days from Boston to Los Angeles. Red eye back to Boston through Charlotte to just barely make my first class of the semester. Not a bad way to spend the last few weeks of what is mostly likely my last innocent summer. From now on I am in the world of making a living and figuring out what the hell I am supposed to do for the next 40-50 years of my life. Honestly roadtrips seem much more fun.

I wish I could put down in this blog what this roadtrip was like. Not only was it one of the most freeing experiences in my life but it changed the way I see the world. Life is simple when you live out of a car and wake up in a different city every morning. In one day I stood at the Grand Canyon and walked the strip of Las Vegas. Woke up in a Howard Johnson and fell asleep in the Trump Towers. And at some point, I believe between getting separated, navigating through West Texas using only a map and encountering an enormous thunderstorm with Michael I realized that this was special. I never thought of America as a beautiful place from coast to coast but I was dead wrong. While standing on the side of the highway in the dark of Texas with my back against the car, eyes up looking at the stars I decided that we have to enjoy this. By that I mean we have to enjoy whatever our life is, great or shitty. The one thing I learned is that there are a lot of beautiful things we miss in our lives till we are forced to sit and look at them. For 11 days I learned a lot about those parts of my life. So if you are thinking about going cross country...get some friends..pack your car and do it..no matter what it takes.

The end of this roadtrip however marked the beginning of my Senior year of College. College in itself has been interesting. Emerson, though being an extremely interesting school and having a number of great professors, lacks a lot of what i wanted from college. However I would never change going to school here for the few people who without this school I would not have met. They are worth the millions dollars in loans. I am not afraid to admit that I cannot wait to leave the city. I am now 100% sure that I do not fit here at all and probably never will.

The one thing I do enjoy about the city though is the number of great concerts. In the next few months I will get to see Mumford and Sons and Johnny Flynn in Boston. They give me faith that mainstream music may become great again.

Life is a series of impressions

David Hume examined perception in the human mind and came to the assumption that our lives are made up of perceptions and not actual facts. What we remember about our lives are just ideas or perceptions we made about people, places, or things. Ever remember something happing one way while your friend remembering it a different way, that is Hume's theory at work. Not many philosophers to this day have chose to argue his points of the human mind and for good reason, he was right. Now I am sure that I am not alone in thinking how scary it is that we cannot even remember our lives without bias. In the same vain though it makes each and every one of us unique with intrinsic oneness. We remember our lives based on the way we felt and images we stored away. For many of us that means that our lives in the long run will be remembered as a series of great and not so great events, with the mediocre day to day stuff lost to the world.

However, everyone will be viewed by the rest of the world as well and those people will take their own unique perceptions and ideas away about you. That is why perfection would ruin the human race. We are made to all have faults because without them we would never have nothing worth remembering. Our lives would just be facts, one on top of another. I used to put a lot of thought into this blog for this exact reason, I wanted to remember how great and how flawed I am. Perceptions are all we have and maybe I can capture something here that otherwise would of been lost. What Hume was trying to get at in a not so flowery and philosophical way is that what makes us human are our faults, our emotions, and our view of the world. He was trying to acknowledge how beautiful our faults can be and will be, and for just a second remember that our lives are completely our own, for good or bad.

It Goes On

I am back, very unceremoniously but back none the less. I honestly do not have much to say right now. In the past I was cocky enough to think that my writing was witty or interesting. Even as I write this I realize it seems a bit cocky to think anyone would like reading this entry but fuck it. In the last year I have had my ass handed to me by life. No direction and a severe feeling of emptiness and being stuck. I live constantly on the brink of breaking down and giving up, barely enough energy to get dressed in the morning. Through this all though I keep the hope that something good will happen. As Robert Frost once said "In three words I can sum up everything I have ever learned about life...It Goes On"

Sometimes whether we want it to or not..life goes on and it can only get better....I think.

Nice Blogs Finish Last

I guess the major question for anyone who logistically wants to write a blog and have it be popular is can you write something interesting everyday for months on end? In a world where everything moves fast so the scene girl with a sidekick, a twitter, a blog, and a half naked profile picture on facebook can update every last one of those things before you can even start to hate her, its very hard to keep anyone's attention for 2 seconds.

However, for whatever fucked up reason people like to read about the mundane lives of other sad souls from every walk of life. Anyone from a washed up writer to a preteen girl can have a blog that generates reader after reader to laugh at it or sympathize with it. Anyone can have a blog that is successful but in the end who really gives a fuck. 50 years from now no one will care about what you think about Obama and no one will care about this fucking entry.

Later,
Andrew

Drug Induced Similarites

The Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" vinyl is spinning behind me, Shine On Parts 1-5, a 70's machine played through a 21st century surround sound system. Just trying to keep a grasp on the past it seems. As a society we cannot just seem to let go of the fucking spinning disk and its lower sound quality. However, at some point a thing get so old and by the wayside that it becomes cool again. As a bunch of grunge and pop loving, raised in the 90's on anything from Nirvana to Hanson kids are proceeding into their live free, die young 20's, vinyl is back on the shelf. New record players are being produced and the pot smoking hippie infused generation of the 40 somethings who were raised in the 70's, can now join the pot smoking hippie infused 20 somethings as the only vinyl lovers still around.

Growing up through the 90's and into today (almost 2010, holy fuck) there was always this feeling of connection to that group of kids that grew up in the 70's, from clothes to music, examples, Dazed and Confused and That 70's Show. We wanted to be them and they just wanted us to do our fucking homework now that they are 40 and our parents. Everything seemed so fucking cool back then, nothing like the 80's where all the drugs from the 70's backfired and some dumbass introduced coke to everyone making way too much money. Kids were finally being kids, slacking off, smoking pot while listening to the guitar solo from Comfortably Numb in their parents basement. They dressed different, they acted different, and they grew up different. As a kid and now a semi-adult, going back and growing up in the 70's probably wouldn't of been much different than the 90's. No Spice Girls or one hit wonder techno but the fact remains that a 40 something can sit in a room while a vinyl spins out the opening to Led Zeppelin's "Over the Hills and Far Away", and get the same feeling as a 20 something when he throws on his ipod to the opening of "Come As You Are", they would feel like they owned those years.

Another month I drowned away

FUCK!!

It has been a month since I last blogged. Either A. I am a lazy piece of shit or B. I am a forgetful piece of shit.

I assume its a combination of both. I am like 95% percent sure of this.

I spent 4 days at Amherst this week and it taught me one thing...sometimes you just have to get in the car with some strangers and listen to The Island: Come and See

Yours Truly

Wanting to Leave Only to Return

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When I got back from my 3 week trip to Montana I said to myself and Dale (who was with me at the time) that I was retiring from hiking for a year. I guess I considered hiking and going on treks sort of a job in the same sense a baseball player considers baseball their job. For a while it was defining me as a person. I was always just living until the next hike. Thinking back on it I believe it was a much more relaxed and logical way to live. Instead of always being worried about what is happening and if your life is going the way it "should" you are focused on what is coming up and the times ahead. It is much easier to live in the moment and be content with things you cant control. I have not gone on a large trek in a while and I am beginning to feel that pressure to make things the way I imagine they should be. This is very often how you mess things up. So soon enough I would like to get away from everything this way I will want to return again.

Goodbye,
Andrew

I Thought You Were A Lifesize Paper Doll

"But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken."

Rarely do we realize how little control we have over those around us. We imagine, because we spend much time with ourselves, that we are the point from which all things stem. On those rare occasions where we step back we understand that we are just the opposite. We have the ability to be the beginning, middle, or end for anyone. The quote above by the dramatist Pedro Calderon de la Barca states the only thing we are is a variable. Most of the time we are in dream which is visible, isolated, brief with no actual beginning, middle, or end. During this time our goal should be to do well because when we do awake and things do stem from us we will have the people and knowledge we need to live up to our own self image. We have control over ourselves and to us everyone else is a variable. To them we are the variable. I believe we should make the best at being a variable for whoever is out there wondering why they cannot control us. For every variable needs a constant. This way maybe when we awaken all that crazy dream stuff may be real.

I thought you were a lifesize paper doll but then wouldn't we all be dolls?

Hi, How Are You? Part 2

How much do we hide from people on a daily basis? A few times a day I will be asked by either a stranger, acquaintance, or a close friend how are you? It seems no matter what the situation that day may be or how I actually am that the response is always some form of the word good. Very rarely do any of us respond to the question how are you? with some form of the word bad. As we grow further and further away from family I feel that no one knows us inside and out anymore. This may be why people take so much effort in choosing a mate for life. Not because of evolutionary need to reproduce but the newly developed need to have someone know us through and through. Subtly we are hiding bits and pieces of ourselves everyday even though there are people out there who we don't talk to anymore who know us well. Somehow we pretend that hiding parts of ourselves will protect us from losing ourselves to other people. My question is why.

I realized today how much "stuff" I have. Whether it be computer parts, books, movies, posters, or clothes I realized there is a lot of it. I am not sure what my life would be without all this "stuff". In a way I think we are defined by our "stuff" because it is solid hold in your hand memories, like a book you read as a child or an old t shirt. We connect "stuff" with people, some who may not be around anymore, and through this we can piece our lives together. Its funny how much you could look at my stuff and learn almost nothing yet I can look at it and see my entire life. This is why yard sales are so interesting because you are buying other peoples "stuff", you are buying their memories. (For sale: A piece of who I am- $5).

Song of the Day: Your Hand In Mine- Explosions in the Sky

Hoping you are all actually good,
Andrew

And everyday we will write something new

Yesterday was my birthday...I am 20 years old...20 years does not seem like a long time but when I think I am only 3 more of these away from 80 I think god damn...I do not feel older but I know I look older. I have begun to listen to records (vinyls)...and that must add some old points to my tally. I dont feel I know much more then when I was say 15. The world is still round..2+2 =4...girls are still confusing as all hell and I still am not sure what all of this schooling and training means. I can't picture myself in the real world yet people tell me that I am in it. I guess the only thing I have learned in the last 5 years and the only thing being a teenager taught me is that
A. You cannot control 95% of your life.
B. Don't ever be afraid to fail...worst thing you can do is not believe you are doing the right thing.

I am left with questions though as my birthday ends..as I was listening to my new Johnny Flynn album, the song Brown Trout Blues stuck out to me. "Time rolls the back wheels of my mind".."I wonder if I'm doing the best I could"....i guess we can never know we are doing the best we could. How do we judge ourselves as easily as we judge others?

I def. feel I have to get away for a little while...or at least start doing something different. I'm not one to worry about things but I have to make a change. I am going to start with a tattoo..see where it goes from there. I feel like my trip to Montana last summer started something that I never kept going on. So for my birthday I am giving myself a second chance. I hope to blog everyday for a month in an attempt to figure out what is actually going on.

Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit