Just wanted to say...

Ugh, I hate those loud things! It’s so frustrating to be awoken by the jolting and highly irritating sound of a week wacker, chain saw, or leaf blower. I think they should be BANED and people should pick up a stinkin’ rake or clippers or anything that isn’t freakin’ loud and use it to maintain the landscape. UGHHHH

rant over

This was a comment I had made under an entry written by the user “fateaccompli”, who recently deleted her account. Her original entry is unfortunately lost now, but this was a great philosophical discussion. I am reposting what I wrote here and what she replied to me as a comment because I just didn’t want this to be gone or forgotten… If anyone wishes to add to the discussion, please do…

The thought of reincarnation scares me.

I wouldn’t want to die and come back as someone or something else, because I don’t want to imagine existing in any other form without the memories I have now. Even for me, who can’t really figure out how to maintain long-term connections with people, I don’t want to imagine not knowing the people I know today or have known in the past. Even if my time with them is only in memory and that hurts, I wouldn’t want to let go of that. Existing without your memories is death because it’s not you anymore…

_{Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite movies called After Life where the premise is that heaven is the one memory you would want to relive for eternity…}

Every year I’ve missed the wild California poppy bloom that happens each spring in the high desert. Either I’m too busy studying for exams or I’m too lazy to make the hour and a half drive up to see them or I forget until it’s too late. Last Friday I was talking to a friend over a lunch about how my usual weekend routine does not involve doing anything terribly interesting. So, this weekend I resolved to change that. When I was thinking about possible things I could do, I remembered that it was poppy season and verified on the website for the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve that the poppy bloom was currently at its peak.

So, I and my companion left for the poppy reserve located several miles west of Lancaster Sunday morning excited and hoping to see carpets of orange scattered on the gently rolling hills of the high desert. There were poppies blooming around the entrance of the park and I couldn’t wait to pay the $7 entrance fee and hike the looping trails to see lots of flowers… Well, flowers we did see, but just not many of those flowers were poppies. The few poppies we did see were suspiciously clustered near the trails where visitors walked. I almost wonder if the park officials just strategically scattered seeds near the entrance and next to the trails to draw people in and collect their money and make them think there was something really spectacular there. I don’t know what happened; it was the peak of the bloom, but the display was rather anemic. Maybe there wasn’t enough rain this year or maybe some other condition just wasn’t right this year.

I was disappointed about the lack of poppies, but I still enjoyed the hike on a pleasant day in the desert. It was a little windy, but the temperature was very mild. We still saw lots of flowers in bloom. We saw lots of clusters of goldfields (which look like tiny yellow sunflowers) and these bulky purple flowers called owl’s clover (the tips of which supposedly look like two eyes and and a beak…um… maybe). It was also interesting to hear the sound of the wind in the grass, sort of like a waterfall but not really. I don’t know how to describe it… There’s actually a lot of beauty in the desert, and it was nice to take some time to admire it while leaving the city behind for a while.

And, I did finally get to see a good poppy bloom albeit not within the boundaries of the poppy reserve. I shot the attached photo along the side of a road near Lake Elizabeth. It was definitely worth the drive, and hopefully next year or sometime else in the future, I’ll get to see a more glorious bloom…

I’ve been in the occasional habit of reflecting on the change of seasons. It’s not just that seasons mark distinct stages of a continuous, circular cycle experienced in the natural world; they also provide convenient reference points by which to monitor a single year of life.

I sat in the park yesterday on a cool, overcast day in the green grass watching dandelion flowers and the bees flying among them. I took a few deep breaths, and I tried to think about where things stand at the moment. I couldn’t really think of anything other than just what I was seeing around me. I couldn’t really come up with anything remarkable about the winter that just ended, and I couldn’t really formulate anything particularly special about the season coming up ahead. I’ve been busier than normal, that’s all I could think. I feel like I’ve been working hard but not really making progress, but rather just maintaining where I’m at, which for some reason seems harder to do. It’s sort of like being in the middle of running a long distance and not being halfway done and having to maintain a steady pace just to keep up and eventually, with any luck, reach the end… wherever that is…

I had lunch with my friend Yuan today, and he was just really happy telling me about how he enjoys the time he has been spending with his one month old son. He told me he had a sort of revelation upon observing the peace and satisfaction on his son’s face after napping and feeding. He told me that we really don’t require much to be happy, and that it was all very simple. All these things that we chase as adults like nice cars and other possessions, social status and whatever, they’re actually not necessary. This idea isn’t really news to me as it’s pretty common for people to say stuff like this all while continuing to pursue these these things anyway. What was fascinating to me, however, was the perspective from which he came from as he said this.

Children, and especially babies, are made happy by the simplest things. A baby is content with milk, sleep and being held and not much more. My friend also has a three and a half year old daughter. He drives an old beat-up car and his wife a newer, more luxurious car, but his daughter is equally happy travelling in either car. She hasn’t been taught yet to see distinctions in these things that adults often use as tools to prop themselves up over their peers. If we can just remind ourselves that the need we feel for all these extra things is fake, it’s amazing to think about how much less stressful our lives could be. It’s just so hard sometimes to take the time to stop in the middle of life and remember this.

I do continue to wonder how much of this desire for all this extra stuff is learned and how much is in fact innate. I guess there is a type of innocence that exists when you don’t have to fight for your own survival. When you’re a small child everything is provided for you and you feel safe under the protection of your parents. When you become responsible for your own survival and compete against others for scarce resources it seems to become more important to assert your dominance over others and to secure your place within society. Maybe the pursuit of all these seemingly superfluous things and the desire to be accepted socially and to be seen as well-off is a leftover vestige of some built-in evolutionary survival-based behavior… I wonder…

I went on a 10-mile roundtrip hike, which lasted nearly 7 hours, with my friend Yuan the day after New Year’s in the San Gabriel Mountains along the San Gabriel River to a place called the “Bridge to Nowhere”. The bridge is a remnant of a road that was never fully constructed to connect the San Gabriel Valley in suburban LA to the Antelope Valley in the high desert. The road was washed away during a massive flood in the 1930’s, and besides the bridge, few remnants of that road remain. It was a cool day but sunny day with generally great conditions for hiking.

This was one of the more challenging hikes I had been on not just because of the length but because of the rugged terrain and the numerous stream crossings involved. Although there was only an elevation gain of about 800 feet over the course of the hike, there were a lot of ups and downs along the trail and climbing around rocks on narrow ledges. I really had a sense of accomplishment when I completed the hike, and it was a very enjoyable experience (despite the soreness I and my friend experienced afterward).

Neither of us had been on the trail before or knew what to expect, so we didn’t come quite a prepared as we should have. Nevertheless, we were able to make do with what we had. The stream crossings were interesting. We didn’t have the sort of boots you would use to wade in the water, so we took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our pants and waded across ice cold water that ranged from ankle to knee deep. The water felt very stinging with its coldness (remember it’s winter and the water comes from deep within the mountains). We crossed barefoot about four times, and we crossed the river at least a total of ten times. This would be an impossible hike when the river is swollen after a heavy rain. The other times we didn’t cross barefoot we were able to tiptoe balancing on logs or stones lying across the width of the stream. We picked up branches along the side of the stream and used them to help us balance; life would have been much more difficult without them.

What we found on hiking along the trail was one of the most beautiful canyon settings in Southern California that either of us had ever seen. We heard the crashing of the river during most of the time we were out. The environment was, however, more desert-like than I had expected. The trail was within a canyon in the mountains and reached a maximum elevation of less than 3,000 feet, which I guess was not high enough for pine trees or other sorts of mountain flora. In part of the floodplain that we walked through, there was what I would describe as a forest of yucca plants with sharp, pointy leaves. These leaves even poked us through our clothing. About half the hike was out of direct sunlight and under the shade of the surrounding mountains, and the other half was under direct exposure. This would have been a much more difficult hike during the summertime.

We even lucky enough to spot some interesting wildlife. Most of the area we hiked through was in what is called the Sheep Mountain Wilderness, and when we were hiking back we were treated to the sight of four bighorn sheep climbing down a steep cliff. Yuan commented that it would be nice to have their climbing skills. A pair of hikers we were passing pointed them out to us, and I know that I would have never noticed them if someone else didn’t point them out to me. I also scanned the river hoping to spot some trout but didn’t see any although there were a few anglers wading the stream. They didn’t seem to be having much luck, but I didn’t actually ask any of them how the fishing was.

It took us 3 hours and 43 minutes to reach our final destination 5 miles from our starting point, the Bridge to Nowhere. It was really an odd, beautiful sight. The bridge, which stood alone with no connecting road at either end of it, was in remarkably excellent condition with elegant support arches high above the river below and ending abruptly against a towering mountain. Knowing that it survived the great floods from 70 years ago when the rest of the highway didn’t, we wondered how long into the future the bridge would survive as we rested there a while.

We learned some things that helped us hike more efficiently and shave 43 minutes off the time of our return trip, which took us exactly 3 hours. We knew the trail better and were helped by the general descent in elevation. We carried sticks with us most of the time to help us better maintain better balance during difficult parts of the trail. We ran into other hikers and followed lead on better spots to climb down certain rocks to reach certain legs of the trail and on better points to cross the stream so we didn’t have to go barefoot so much. We also tried to emulate for a time one group’s quicker hiking pace.

What I liked most about the trip was spending time with my friend. I often go hiking alone, but it would have been very difficult to do this particular hike by myself. There were several occasions we had to help each other climb around certain rocks or while crossing the stream (actually it was mostly him helping me). I liked the team effort and enjoyed being able to share the experience with someone I was close to with a mutual interest.

I hardly slept at all last night because I’m so nervous about an exam I have on Thursday, which I took last year but didn’t pass. I can’t stop thinking about it. I just drank half a bottle of wine hoping that it could help me fall asleep tonight so that I couldn’t think about anything else, and now I just feel intoxicated and incoherent but not sleepy though I didn’t sleep more than two hours last night. Is this healthy? Should I try something else? I’m just not sure how to handle the pressure… I don’t want to fail again, but I’m afraid I might… I can’t figure out how to sleep… I won’t pass if I don’t sleep at least tomorrow night… should I delete this when I’m sober?????

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that relationships are only temporary, that they serve a certain purpose and when that purpose is gone the relationship also fades. I’ve been trying to force myself to accept this as natural, and the more I think this way, that nothing can be expected to last, the more indifferent I become toward forming or maintaining relationships. I can’t tell if this is wrong or not or if this is what people mean when they talk about just taking things as they come. I begin to feel things in whatever direction less intensely, and I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.

It feels like renting a car to me. You don’t care so much about how many miles you put on it or in what conditions you drive it in, and you don’t think much about these things because it’s not yours. You’re more reckless than if it were your own car. You use it for a good time or out of temporary necessity, but in the end it’s not yours and you can’t keep it. Therefore, you feel no attachment or connection to it.

Thinking that relationships are only temporary, I become indifferent and have a hard time seeing value in going out of my way to make significant effort in a relationship. I can’t tell if it’s wrong to feel so indifferent since this is not how I’m used to feeling. In one way it’s liberating because in this situation I don’t take things personally and I don’t fear losing so much because in fact I’m mostly indifferent about it. On the other hand, however, I begin to feel disconnected and like I want to be more isolated, and I’m mostly indifferent about the fact of being isolated. Not happy, not sad, not anything, just indifferent…

This is random. I was just lying around listening to music on the iPod tonight trying to find something poetic to listen to (as I think that much of the greatest modern poetry can be found in songs). I was listening to Ghosts by Mark Geary… It just got me thinking about how fragile relationships are… I mean not necessarily at any given point in time but over the long run. I was just thinking about these lyrics in particular:

“and then after you left the dream was broken \ just your shape in the sand \ no words we’re needed \ I don’t know how much time we’re given \ fighting for your right to fail.”

I was thinking about what Julie wrote in a thread yesterday about not knowing why people come into your life or how long they’ll stay but still treasuring what you have while it exists… This is a hard one for me as in terms of relationships I often just see shapes in the sand that shift away in the wind before there are even shapes there (if that makes any sense and I haven’t carried the metaphor too far), and then I can’t tell what is or whatever was real… Now I’m just rambling… fighting for my right to fail…

Yesterday, July 6th, was my one year anniversay on 43 Things. I remember it was late in the evening when I created my account, maybe 10:30 or 11 PM. I had heard about the site several weeks before from a friend I had at the time who said he had come across it and thought it could be something that could help me since I had told him that I was unfocused. I spent some time thinking about what goals I would like to set for myself but wasn’t sure how committed I would really be or if I wanted to put all this stuff on the internet. Then near the end of last June (not last month but a year ago from last month, just to be clear) I had a bad social experience which made me question what was wrong with my approach toward dealing with people. So, over the next couple of weeks I thought seriously about what I needed to work on to make myself better in my relationships and as a person in general.

My number one goal last year was to learn to swim which I adopted mainly on the suggestion of the same friend who told me about the site and who also told me I should complete at least one of the things on an old list I had put together when I was 22 of things I wanted to complete before I turned 30. One of those things was to learn to swim, and my friend told me that this was definitely within my grasp. My 30th birthday came and went last fall and I didn’t complete the goal, but that same friend had also told me that to keep starting but not finishing things was a serious character flaw. I renewed my focus on this goal again this summer mostly because of what my friend had told me. I want to finish what I start for once and even more significantly I sincerely don’t want to let him down, not that it really means anything to him, but still…

My next four goals were all related to the idea of improving my social skills. They were to be more assertive, to be more trusting, to be more open and honest with people and to learn to maintain and strengthen my existing friendships. I’m still working on being more assertive, which I think can help me in a lot of ways not just socially, but the other three goals I gave up on. After much agonizing and discussion here, I realized that I didn’t have the right mentality to improve on those things and that I probably have some deeper issues I need to work through before I can be successful. I seem to not have the right understanding of what friendship is or what to expect from it, so I’m probably better off thinking about how to improve my life in other ways…

I was chewing gum the other day and was thinking about how relationships with other people are quite like chewing gum. You chew gum until you sucked out all the juice and then you spit it out. People take whatever they need from the other until they have taken all they can and then they let go and move on. I think I could be happy if I could only accept this idea as true and be okay with it. Although I feel like I’m the gum all the time in this analogy, if I think hard and I’m really honest I would probably realize that I’m no different from anyone else and I do the same. I don’t want to be the gum that gets spit out and then annoyingly gets stuck on the bottom of someone’s shoe and that they then have to expend a lot of effort to pry off. I feel like I’m often that person, and I don’t want to be that anymore.

Even if I haven’t made as much progress as I should have in completing my most significant goals, I think 43 Things has helped me significantly in organizing and verbalizing the things I want to accomplish and even if I don’t accomplish so much I have learned a tremendous amount about myself and why I think the way I do. I’m especially grateful for the feedback I get from other users and enjoy the opportunities where I can add value to someone else in a positive way. I don’t have much of a social life so the intereaction here does help to fill some of that gap although I have to be careful to remember that an “internet friend” isn’t quite the same thing as a “real life friend”. People I know in “real life” aren’t particularly interested in the details of my crappy life, but I’m happy to have found an outlet where I can write about it whenever I want and whoever chooses can read about it as they desire to or not. I also like the opportunity to read about what others wish to share about their lives. So, I’m really glad I was introduced to 43 Things…