Making the Choice

Life is a series of choices. (unless you're a Calvinist). But for the most part people wont fight you on that. And although we may see some choices as small and insignificant, they can end up having a big impact in the long run (insert chaos theory here). This creates an area of unforeseeable change. Sure we made a choice, but how were we supposed to know this would come of it? Now here is where people will decide that life is unfair. It has dealt them a cruel hand and has no remorse.

Bah...

I could go off on that for hours, but that's not what this is about. This is about hard choices... medium... not the big huge changes that change you all at once, but the ones that are smaller that you have to make over and over again that may not really change you once or twice but when repeated will change you more than those big ones can. you trackin with me?

every day we get out of bed. That is the kind I'm talking about. You can stay in bed, lounge around in your PJs for the day and ignore the world and it will have a pretty drastic impact on your day, but not necessarily your life. That is until you make a habit of it and stop leaving your house altogether.

these choices can at first seem smaller than even that; who we choose to talk to, where eat, where we work, people you pass by, how you react to the people you pass by, giving a crap for the people you pass by, insulting the people you pass by. thats a lot of passing by. These choices are all small in and of themselves and may affect us and those we come into contact with for a day or only a few seconds, but when this behavior is repeated day after day, and these actions build atop one another, we know that this is going to affect the greater direction of our future.

If we don't take time to interact with people, we will never know them. If we treat them like dirt, we will view them as dirt. If we punch them in the face, we will be arrested and be given a restraining order.

Sometimes I put the blinders on and choose not to look down the long term road. I know it's there, and with every action I make i know that i am ultimately bringing closer my impending doom, but if i look upon my actions as isolated incidents, it doesn't seem so bad. There are countless things in every part of my life where the choices are made so quick that i barely take the time to recognize them at all, but I do (ok, maybe not all, but a lot of them). I see my ways become tainted; I keep my mouth shut as i slowly give myself over to cynicism, I continue to look at the street avoiding eye contact as I struggle to love people, I stop seeking after God eventually I don't care to. Meanwhile I (that is that little me that I know i am that sits inside my head) am just along for the ride, wondering how i arrived where i am, but still to callused and selfish to redirect myself. Everyday these choices are made, and the more you make in one direction the easier it is to continue on that path, and the harder it is to turn back. It's like a freakin KOTOR game! Only you can't restart.

I have seen people around me at point that i would hope i never am, but know if i continue, i will end up just like them. So now i am presented with not one choice, but many, over a long, long, long period of time. I would take any one big decision over these several smaller seeming ones. But these little in between ones are the choices that life is really made of, and if i choose to continue to ignore them, they will make me.

Life, Love, and my newly realized Stubbornness

I realize that I no longer know how to communicate with people. As a mater of fact I'm not so sure i ever did. People are all wired so differently, and for as long as i can think back on i have only put effort into viewing things through my own lens. This means i have not the slightest clue how other people are receiving what I say, unless they think and process just like me. When am I overbearing, when do I cross lines, when am i understood, I have no idea.

God has been smacking me in the face with so many different things relating to this lately. Now that politics are running rampant I get to have "discussions" with several of the most stubborn people I have ever met. People of unwavering devotion, who i view as blinded by their alliances. Shutting things out, leaving questions unanswered, or insulting opposing views. In their eyes they are justified, and in mine they fail to take many things into consideration.

In the midst of all of this I have slowly had it pointed out to me that i can be very much the same way with several aspects of my life. Most of the time i am not trying to be. I am justified in what i say, and what my opinions are darn it! I know i am right because of things i have experienced, how things have changed, and how things can be. These are all the same arguments used by the (in my eyes) crazy political people who fail to see the whole picture. So how do I change?

Also I have learned and now look at my inherent ability to make it sound like every comment i make i think is far superior to the ideas preceding it. When i give my opinion I think it is far better than the others therefore all of you should agree with me, and change your ways. This is true in part, I do think my opinion is, or can be better than that of others, or is at least equally valid, why else would i bring it up? Often I just want a reason for my opinion not to stand. I don't want to argue because i want to be right, I want to debate so I can better understand what is going on and adapt my views on things.

So how do I change?

How do I learn to communicate with people and love them more?

I want to blame all of my issues on others, and could easily point out that it is their problem that they misinterpret me, they have not had the same experiences so can't know what I know. They need to wise up and know that i know what i am talking about.

But these are all bunk arguments. Anything that i can say about another person can be turned around and said right back to me.

So how do i break out of my narrow minded thinking and acting?

The more important issue, how do i better understand people and get them to better understand me.

I feel self centered touting about people getting me, me, me.... But it's kind of a big deal in my life, granted there is probably a lot to be said if i were to more often just shut up and listen.

Climbing Like Kong

Day 2 (part 2):

Old Man In a Bird Suit

After the Sbarro adventure I was given the unique opportunity to see Mr. Letterman tape his show.  His guest for the night was the wonderful Richard Simmons.  He came riding in on a bike taxi wearing a shirt of red feathers.  I'm  going to have to find a video of it, because it really was beyond anything i can, or want, to describe

The Long way Home

We then headed towards grand central but swung by bryant park to see them playing old movies.  There were hundreds and hundreds of people filling the park, it seriously made me want to live there, this would easily become part of my weekly routine if i was near the city.

From there the Empire state building was spotted, and the idea was had to go find it and go o the top.  When we got there we were confronted by  nice lady selling tickets to some flight simulator.  Long story short she wanted us to pay $45  a piece to take a virtual tour of the city, and then head to the 86th floor for observation, the only perk was we would not have to wait in the line for 90 minutes.  We got to talking, brought up the fact that my partner in crime gets extreme motion sickness, and before you know it she was helping us sneak ahead in line.  

We were lead around the building through doors in the back, two security guards checked us for weapons but paid no mined to what we were doing.  W headed to the mens bathroom, asked where the line was to go to the top of the Empire State building and presto, we skipped though all the lines on the road.  Thank you simulator lady, wherever you are

Taking the first real bite

Day two (part one):

I woke up this morning to the sight of my three cousins screaming my name as they proceeded to jump on me with a giant green gorilla.  I then spent the morning with them on top of me watching sponge bob until Josh got his butt out of bed 3 hours later.  After walking the dog, playing with photo booth, talking out way out of swimming, returning a rental car (twice), and getting on a train, I had finally arrived at my destination.  The unbound, unsupervised, and unlimited adventure of New York,

We were so struck with everything there that we didn't even know where to start.  We walked from Grand Central to Times Square and proceeded to go inside of all the store i had wanted to find  so bad (all involving either candy, toys, or both).  We stopped in the median so i could pretend to be Hiro Nakamura screaming with joy as i had finally teleported, then we got pizza.

Preacher Dude:

In Sbarro this guy ended up coming and sitting next to us, talking about his career on the street, and how he has been making a lot of money from his act.  He pulled a dirty wad of cash, totaling maybe two hundred bucks, all of his money so far.  He then went of on the tangent of how he used to preach to truck drivers and ended up talking a million miles an hour about how he gives his 10% to God because he commands it.  He pulled out an old Gideon Bible ,i assume was from some hotel room in his past, and opened to the book of numbers.  He read a passage i can't remember that briefly mentioned money, and said that's what he bases his life off of.  He gives money to people, thus giving it to God, knowing that God will reward him.  It wasn't clear if he thought God was going to make him rich, or if he was planing on having thins laid up in heaven.  Josh couldn't get a word in the whole time until finally, preacher guy started seeing the women outside.

oh he was going off on how white women had no butts, and black women had great butts, and the women in the city were the finest in the world.  If only he could find one to marry him so he could spend each night with her.  He has a lady lined up of course, but she's not very good.  But one day, one day God will give him the money he needs to get a good wife.  Because all you need is money and you can get any woman that walks the streets.  That's all that any of them really care about.   

He went on to make comment after comment about how all women were prostitutes (putting it mildly) and it doesn't even matter if you have AIDS, as long as you have the money, women will take the AIDS along with it.

I just had no idea how to even chime in at this point.  The man obviously very confused, bitter up the wazoo, but still trying to cling to the basic truth of Christ.  He admitted that it was hard to 'stay away' from women.  And he wasn't about to go and hire a prostitute.  But one day God  would give him what he wanted.  And it is so easy for me to look down on him and see all of his faults and misunderstandings walking away cracking small jokes at his inconsistencies; But these are the same types of things that old me down.  I spend all sorts of time doing "great" things for God, giving him money, time, etc. then i stand in front of him wanting a cookie.  Not turkey, and not broccoli, I want a freaking cookie!  So much that i never even see him grab anything else, until he stops trying to hand things out.         So where's my cookie!

How 'bout that Apple

New York, New York.  

Seems like it's been years that i have been trying to get myself here (because it has), and at last i am able to walk freely in the city without the need of a parental guardian.  The city is much different than i remember, both bigger and smaller in a way that i would never be able to explain.  But enough with all that hoopla, what went on?

Day 1:

we'll keep this short and sweet, my aunt and uncle are amazing

• airport
• driving
• Brooklyn Bridge
• pizza=busy
• ice cream
• china town
• pig head
• lots of food
• ice cream
• t-shirts
• walking
• apple store
• Pizza
• mouth wash
• Crazy Jungle Thing
  

Magic Jesus

In our world today we have so many different ways that Christ is viewed.  This isn't anything knew, we all know that people worship him, some hate him, and others just think he's cool.  But for me, i grew up regarding Jesus as I did my other heroes.  Santa Clause, Kermit the Frog and the Ninja Turtles.  There is this mysticism that surrounds God, and there should be.  But i can get so tangled up in how mystic He is that i begin to view Him less like the real and living God, and more like the fictional characters of my childhood.

This isn't all bad.  I kept those characters as my heroes for a reason.  They were good role models, had great power and used it wisely.  They were able to help me through some hard times.  But all of that was just in my head.  Sure they represented good things, i saw them act it out on tv.  But how did they ever help me?

I could get stuck in a sticky situation and think what would superman do.  Or be debating doing something bad, but then remember that Santa is watching me so i better not.  And that is how i have been reduced to following God.  I read his book and wonder what Jesus, Paul or David would do in my shoes.  Or I avoid things because i figure God wouldn't like them.  All the time ignoring the fact that God is not just some magical man sitting on a cloud watching down on me.  He's not a super hero that i only know of because i read about Him or watch Him on tv.  He is here and now.  Open for interaction.  I can watch him in person and stop worrying about what he would do, i can find out what he is doing.  

Christ is interactive.  And far more so than any Spider-Man video game.  So how can i fall back to treating Him as an idea?  Why do i have the soft focus portrait of Him so ingrained in my mind?  If that is the way that i treat God, i might as well be following Superman.  I have the same relationship with both of them after all.  And they both stand for the same thing.

How have i let myself fall back into this mindset, and how do i escape from it?  Reading the Bible has become watching tv and prayer is like playing with action figures. There is more.  I know it, and have seen it.  Yet i don't chase after it.

That's just kinda gross.

San Francisco: Diversity

So over the last week i had the chance to go to San Francisco and work along side a group called ReImagine.  It was a week that was intense to say the least.  We spent time walking down streets, eating with the homeless, talking with Buddhists, eating a lot of food, and learning about the city.

The city was unlike anything else i had ever seen.  Sure most cities are diverse, but San Francisco took it to a whole new level.  Specifically we stuck to the Mission, Castro, Haight Ashbury, as well as a few other districts.  You could bee walking down one street buying the cheapest yet best fruit you've ever had, surrounded by little mexican type shops, and cheap tacos, Then you literally cross the street and the prices are all 5 times higher, the neighborhood is fresh and clean cut and the advertisements that usually plastered with attractive females turn to shirtless men as people of the same gender walk hand in hand under the rainbow flags proudly hung on every street light.

It was hard for my to understand how such clean cut divisions could be made.  They live right next to one another, but the world are so different.  This coming from me who grew up in The Twin cities suburbs surrounded by all white people and zero diversity.  Now here in Winona where everyone seems to melt together.  Yet as I stop and look at Winona I see the same lines being drawn.  Granted we don't have the space of a city to draw or lines, so we can not make as profound of differences as are made in San Francisco, But they are still there, even just on the campus.

You see one group of people colonizing tables to play World of Warcraft, while others meet to do improve comedy, poetic and earth friendly tree huggers previously colonized the coffee shop till the Christians took over, geologists are all in their wing of the labs locked behind their coded doors, nursing students are so much in their own world that there's no telling where they are, but their working on something, freshman roam the dorm lounges, the weird people are over at west campus, the international students in the upper hyphen, a subgroup of Christians in the solarium, the political people are off in the student senate office, and then there are the dozens if not more students locked in their room hidden away from the world.  But if anyone ventures outside the area of their group they also will cut out the world.  Putting in their headphones, burring themselves in homework, blankly looking through facebook just to pass the time, and because it takes to much effort to find anyone to talk to.

How do we get like this?  How do we become so divided?  I know it has to happen to a point.  We are all given different talents, and different passions.  But how does it get to the point where we would rather interact with an almost blank screen than have human contact?  How is it that we leave so many people out of everything we do?  Why do we feel a need to sit on our butts and are not compelled to talk to the other person alone sitting across the room?   Have we become so cold that we simply do not care?  Is it just so foreign to us that we don't see the value?  Are we so selfish that we want to stay comfortable at the cost of others, and even ourselves?

It seemed that most everyone i talked to in San Francisco went there because in some way they were cut out, not cared for, or not content.  Not content because they couldn't be themselves.  Because people look funny and frown upon things that are different, because it makes us uncomfortable.  They find the freedom to do these things in their city, just as we find freedom in our groups.  yet there are still the people sitting alone.  The strangers with the music going.  People who are hurt, and in the midst of their new freedom decide to suppress the past hoping it will go away.  People with issues above and beyond anything that you or I could possible imagine.  And we become so content in our soft squishy groups that we walk on by.  Most the time we become so comfortable in our groups that we decide we're ok, and as long as we have those people, and as long as we have that connection we're going to make it.  It doesn't matter how we act or feel when we're away from them.  Or the attitudes we have towards other groups if we even acknowledge their existence.  It  can get to the point where we love our comfort so much we never take time to question anything, so we sit down in our snuggled into our group meeting and drink out cyanide Kool-Aid.

Diversity is a blessing.  Nature gives us so many different examples of how different groups of plants and animals interact.  There is mutualism, where the two organisms benefit from their relationship.  Commensalism, where one benefits and the other is seemingly unaffected. And then Parasitism, One gets hurt while the other benefits.  When things interact they usually take one of these routes, this works the same for animals as it does for people.  How do we interact, how do I interact?

Intro to Toast

I'm not sure why I want to throw toast, or where that came from... But maybe that's why it seems fitting.  Anywho.

Life is messed up, most anyone can agree with that.  But it's to beautiful how all of the messed up stuff can do so much good.  And how short, seemingly insignificant moments can make all the difference in the end.  It's pretty cool all in all, but sucks sometimes.   

Like a lot.