just a quicky

So lately I've been wondering about peoples relationships with each other. I feel like I've been juggling a lot with people I really like who don't really like each other. It's weird, and I wish everyone could just get along. But I don't feel like I can say that, cause there are a lot of people that I don't like, that other people have to juggle. It's just been a weird couple weeks socially, just watching other peoples prejudices against each other that aren't necessarily founded in anything logical.

Peace love and drugs, y'all.

mile 20

When you train for a marathon, you never run the whole 26 miles before the actual race. You work yourself up gradually, but the most you ever run at a time in training is 20 miles. Why don't you have to go the whole way in training? Because of the runner's high. The difference between 20 miles and 26 miles is hardly anything at all.

At the beginning of this blog, I compared how I felt to mile 14, just a little past the halfway mark.
I felt like I was going to die. I felt like I would never see the end.

Now I am seeing the end, and that is WEIRD. I'm definitely not done yet - I still have 6 miles to go. But it's not going to be that bad. I'm almost done. My last 2 semesters are not going to be too painful. I still have to work to finish, but I can almost just coast through the rest of it on my runner's high.

Unfortunately, after I finish the race I have to keep running. But I don't want to think about that yet. Ha.

a turning point

Once upon a time, Regi Wooten taught a boy how to play the guitar. By the time the boy was 17, he was playing on some sessions for his dad, who did the music for commercials. At one of the sessions, Regi showed up. The boy was suddenly very self conscious and put his guitar down.

Why did you put your guitar down? Regi asked.
I'm embarrassed, the boy said.
Why are you embarrassed? Regi asked.
You're my teacher. I'm not as good as you are, the boy said.

Do you have a fingerprint? Regi asked.
Yes, sir, the boy replied.
Is your fingerprint like anyone else's fingerprint in this entire world? Regi asked.
No, sir, the boy said.
There is no way that I can do what you do, like you do it, said Regi.

Musical fingerprints.

The boy's dad, who told us this story, yesterday evening, said, "Why didn't somebody tell me that when I was 17?? I've spent years being not as good as everyone else, and being self conscious, and working my butt off."

I feel like the boy's dad. A lot. This story was really encouraging to me, because so much of my life and my career is governed by me comparing myself to everyone else. Not practicing because I will never be as cool as Yo Yo Ma. Not being able to play the violins at the shop in front of the other people that work there, because they are more experienced than me. I know how the boy feels, with REGI WOOTEN at his session. If Ms Small showed up to a session I was playing on, I would be intimidated.

But - is anyone ashamed of his fingerprints? Should a person be intimidated about their fingerprint next to someone elses, just because the someone else's is a bit older and has been through more?

_____
So anyway. Today I am deciding what to do with my life. I have to figure out if I'm gonna graduate early, or graduate on time, or graduate on time working my butt off to get a minor. Those are the three options. The fourth option, dropping out, has sounded mighty good lately, but I don't want to have wasted all this money we've spent on it so far. Besides, no one takes you seriously if you don't have a degree.

So I'm going to talk to some high up people and see about graduating next fall.

But graduating? Seems like I've been working towards it so long, I barely even want to graduate. And everyone who does graduate says that college was much better, and that we don't know what we're getting into.

Dustin asked me what I wanted to do upon graduating, and I didnt have an answer for him. I couldve said, work in your shop! (....for 8 bucks an hour? less than 20 hours a week?) Teach private lessons. (to who?)

So pretty much I need to start building a studio. and maybe get another job. Ha. I dont know. I'll keep you updated.

___

Edit:
I am graduating Fall '09.

the beatles and aldous huxley - thoughts on election day

Disclaimer: this post may seem really bitter and pessimistic, but it really isn't intended to be so. These are just some thoughts I've been having lately.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head

-The Beatles (John Lennon)

I heard this song on the radio the other day, and it really got me thinking. Everyone wants to change the world, from the bimbos that want world peace to the guys playing the game to get elected to the hippies that only complain and never fix anything.

Here's what I realized: No one is ever going to fix the world. We can change it. We can "improve" it. But we're going around in circles.

Two weekends ago, a friend of mine asked about the ethics of giving terminal patients fake drugs to make them feel better, even though they are dying. The patients are dying. No drugs are going to help them. But the psychology that they are taking a drug that will help them makes them feel like theyre getting better, even if its just a placebo. So why waste real drugs on patients if its not going to help them?

And I realized that's what we're doing. We're taking fake drugs to make ourselves feel better, and what we don't realize is that we're just making ourselves feel better in our last moments before we die.

I've been reading Brave New World again recently, and that's a lot of what sparked this. And you can throw in 1984, if you want, cause the point is the same. Look at both of these dystopias, (a utopian society with at least one fatal flaw) even though they are completely different. You can see what is going to happen if we try too hard to be happy. We're just going to fix things and fix things and pretend more and more to be happy. Until our emotions are controlled by the government. Hahaha.

But seriously. We live in a fallen world. It's not gonna get fixed until Jesus comes back. All we're doing is running around in circles trying too hard to fix something that we can't possibly fix on our own.

---

"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.