an apology and an entry on trade deficits
For better or for worse, I have crafted nearly 1,500 entries in some 8 years on this site. While I was going through some tags, I kept stumbling across embarrassing, half-assed entries; however, even in those, I found kernels, these little glimmers of happy thoughts and actually decent writing. Unfortunately, for every well-crafted sentence or thought, there appears to be paragraphs of crap to outweigh it.
I'm okay with that. At least for now. I guess I'm just sorry to say that I've spent 8 years being emotional and melodramatic. I get it: those arn't people's favourite qualities in people. Which leads me to the second part of this entry: as a result of these quirks of mine, I've only received some 3,500 or so comments ---but I've posted well over 5,000. That makes me incredibly sad, but I get it. I'm okay with it, I guess.
I guess what I have to realise is that I'm not necessarily a likable person. Carol O'Conner did the bit of likable bigot all too well. I'm afraid it's not the 1970s anymore, and I'm not a craggy, middle-aged man. And that's okay, as I've got to invent my own identity and live that identity in the current reality. The bottom line is, I'm not that likable, and I may, in fact, have more in common with Richard Nixon than I care to admit.
I've spent most of my life being lazy and paranoid, blaming it on depression or others. I don't know. It is a weird feeling, however, to feel washed-up at 25. Even if I had gone to graduate school, I'd still be slaving away, probably only done with the master's portion of the program. Also, I wasn't fortunate enough to be a Mark Zuckerberg or whoever; nor I was I lucky enough to live in a time where man achieved great feats as a teenager, only to be dead by age 30 or so.
I've got a lot of life to live. Right now, I'm choosing to spend that life reading about Jimmy Carter, and continuing to work on and refine those ideas that have been sputtering in my head roughly since the time I did create this livejournal. I've got a lot of hard work ahead of me, and formal training to do. I may never achieve all the technical prowess or linguistic abilities or anything that I wish to. But, I find myself in the midst of trying to articulate some sort of program of thought.
I've spent years doing nothing; I've spent minutes moving mountains. While I like the alliteration of that last thought, I'm not sure I agree with it, overall. I've always known I'm the type to work in fits and spurts, but I've got to stop that. It is time to sustain some sort of effort, to not only write about some program, but actually fulfill it, measure it, write on it, and reflect.
This livejournal has always been part of that process. It would behoove me to finish tagging all those entries from 2003 to approximately 2005 or so that have no tags, and then to re-tag and update the tags on all subsequent entries. That'll be no easy task; it's something I dread, as I've found many tags that were created by typos, or overly redundant tags, or tags that were only used once and long since forgotten.
I've always had a fascination with doing those sort of mundane tasks. I'm sure there's an easy, softer way of doing it (to use AA language), but I like doing it the old-fashioned way. For better or for worse, I have created these thousand plus entries, some well-thought out and fairly well-articulated, but most incoherent messes that can only serve as a reminder of who I was, and that I can only hope show that I have progressed since then.
I'm not sure entirely what the future does hold in store for me. But, now that I'm not drinking, not encumbered by relics of past times, maybe I can really start anew. I'll start the credential program in the Fall, and hopefully begin working on a new life from there.
There's much I'd like to do. But, like I said, I may not even scratch the surface as far as achieving those goals. Lord knows I've already left a sizable record of note cards, sketches, half-conceived thoughts and ideas. "Thoughts and generations of my dreams are yet unborn." No, Jorma, thoughts and generations of my dreams are yet to be fully articulated or realised.
I used to pride myself, until I was about 13 or so, as not leaving any loose ends. I had this naive notion that I had tied everything up. Well, in the past decade, there have been more half-starts and unfinished business ---mostly due to my staunch dogmatism and my inability to sustain any long-term effort.
Something tells me this entry did not end up as positive, or short, as I would have liked. Clearly, as real life friends disappear, I'm left with a lot of thoughts that need to be expressed. I'll never really live that kind of revolutionary life I had once craved. Some people lead extraordinary lives; others, such as myself --hopefully -- get the attention we don't deserve by writing about those extraordinary lives. I don't know.
I'm going back upstairs to read more about Jimmy Carter. I'm hoping to start collecting and refining my thoughts. While I've gone back and forth on whether or not I think my undergraduate had any useful purposes, I see that it had some. It was the beginning, not an end.
I think that's today's take away message: life is full of beginnings that need to be seized. That's plenty good enough for me. Okay, no more for today. I hope to be bringing more positive entries to a monitor near you. Cheers.
I'm okay with that. At least for now. I guess I'm just sorry to say that I've spent 8 years being emotional and melodramatic. I get it: those arn't people's favourite qualities in people. Which leads me to the second part of this entry: as a result of these quirks of mine, I've only received some 3,500 or so comments ---but I've posted well over 5,000. That makes me incredibly sad, but I get it. I'm okay with it, I guess.
I guess what I have to realise is that I'm not necessarily a likable person. Carol O'Conner did the bit of likable bigot all too well. I'm afraid it's not the 1970s anymore, and I'm not a craggy, middle-aged man. And that's okay, as I've got to invent my own identity and live that identity in the current reality. The bottom line is, I'm not that likable, and I may, in fact, have more in common with Richard Nixon than I care to admit.
I've spent most of my life being lazy and paranoid, blaming it on depression or others. I don't know. It is a weird feeling, however, to feel washed-up at 25. Even if I had gone to graduate school, I'd still be slaving away, probably only done with the master's portion of the program. Also, I wasn't fortunate enough to be a Mark Zuckerberg or whoever; nor I was I lucky enough to live in a time where man achieved great feats as a teenager, only to be dead by age 30 or so.
I've got a lot of life to live. Right now, I'm choosing to spend that life reading about Jimmy Carter, and continuing to work on and refine those ideas that have been sputtering in my head roughly since the time I did create this livejournal. I've got a lot of hard work ahead of me, and formal training to do. I may never achieve all the technical prowess or linguistic abilities or anything that I wish to. But, I find myself in the midst of trying to articulate some sort of program of thought.
I've spent years doing nothing; I've spent minutes moving mountains. While I like the alliteration of that last thought, I'm not sure I agree with it, overall. I've always known I'm the type to work in fits and spurts, but I've got to stop that. It is time to sustain some sort of effort, to not only write about some program, but actually fulfill it, measure it, write on it, and reflect.
This livejournal has always been part of that process. It would behoove me to finish tagging all those entries from 2003 to approximately 2005 or so that have no tags, and then to re-tag and update the tags on all subsequent entries. That'll be no easy task; it's something I dread, as I've found many tags that were created by typos, or overly redundant tags, or tags that were only used once and long since forgotten.
I've always had a fascination with doing those sort of mundane tasks. I'm sure there's an easy, softer way of doing it (to use AA language), but I like doing it the old-fashioned way. For better or for worse, I have created these thousand plus entries, some well-thought out and fairly well-articulated, but most incoherent messes that can only serve as a reminder of who I was, and that I can only hope show that I have progressed since then.
I'm not sure entirely what the future does hold in store for me. But, now that I'm not drinking, not encumbered by relics of past times, maybe I can really start anew. I'll start the credential program in the Fall, and hopefully begin working on a new life from there.
There's much I'd like to do. But, like I said, I may not even scratch the surface as far as achieving those goals. Lord knows I've already left a sizable record of note cards, sketches, half-conceived thoughts and ideas. "Thoughts and generations of my dreams are yet unborn." No, Jorma, thoughts and generations of my dreams are yet to be fully articulated or realised.
I used to pride myself, until I was about 13 or so, as not leaving any loose ends. I had this naive notion that I had tied everything up. Well, in the past decade, there have been more half-starts and unfinished business ---mostly due to my staunch dogmatism and my inability to sustain any long-term effort.
Something tells me this entry did not end up as positive, or short, as I would have liked. Clearly, as real life friends disappear, I'm left with a lot of thoughts that need to be expressed. I'll never really live that kind of revolutionary life I had once craved. Some people lead extraordinary lives; others, such as myself --hopefully -- get the attention we don't deserve by writing about those extraordinary lives. I don't know.
I'm going back upstairs to read more about Jimmy Carter. I'm hoping to start collecting and refining my thoughts. While I've gone back and forth on whether or not I think my undergraduate had any useful purposes, I see that it had some. It was the beginning, not an end.
I think that's today's take away message: life is full of beginnings that need to be seized. That's plenty good enough for me. Okay, no more for today. I hope to be bringing more positive entries to a monitor near you. Cheers.