The Move

Hey, no one, find me here: http://smashcutlife.tumblr.com

That Dude in the Park

I intern at a law firm where everyone eats in during lunchtime.  They spend about ten minutes eating their delivered salads & sandwiches, in front of their computers, imprinting further their ass marks into their swivel chairs.

As for me, I always go out for lunch.  Staying cooped up in an office all day is not something I want to do.  Even though it’s possible, and I don’t necessarily mind it, just the thought of being cemented in front of my computer all day wills me to take some time off and get out.

My routine is simple: I pack my lunch in the morning.  I drive to the nearby park, with tupperware and book in hand.  I settle on a bench, scarf down my meal, and read for a good half an hour (currently, The Brothers Karamazov) – reading a page, looking up to watch a dog go by, reading a page, looking up to examine the trees, etc.

Sometimes, I’m able to observe the scene outside of myself, from an objective point of view, and I look kind of pathetic.  A dude, in dress clothes, by himself, eating at a park, reading a book.  If I ever saw that, I’d think “Laaaaaame.”  But you know what?  I like it.  I like being out in fresh air, reading a good book and having a moment of peace.  So I fight that urge to look at my situation from an objective perspective, lest the image of awkwardness keep me from doing what I enjoy.  It doesn’t matter how it looks anyway – my head’s in my book, and that’s all I care to see.

August Macke – Man Reading in a Park

Let's Go For a Ride

I think it’s unnatural that I think about mortality so much, especially at my age.  I’d say that once every three days, I’m hit with a semi-whelming realization that life is indeed short.  That phrase may be cliche, but its impact is never slight.

It makes me wonder what it feels like to be on your deathbed.  Actually, I wonder what it feels like to be, say, 75, and knowing that death isn’t that far off.

I also wonder what it’s like after you die.  I’ve chosen my beliefs on life after death, but sometimes I ask, for the sake of probably nothing better than tormenting myself, what if my belief is wrong and there’s a totally different happening that follows death?

This leads me to evaluating why I believe what I do.  I imagine letting go of my tenets and assuming those of another creed.

And the result is always the same: I can’t do it.

For many reasons related to personal experiences, upbringing  and surroundings, I could never truly discard my beliefs – in this case, my beliefs on life after death.  Even when I imagine doing so, there’s this core sense that the ideologies I envision picking up are somehow wrong.  Would things be different if my personal experiences, upbringing and surroundings were different?  Probably.  But that, I think, speaks to the importance of circumstances, not to the truth of my beliefs.

So, what starts as a huge question mark at the phenomenon of death turns into a period upon the affirmation of my beliefs.

Now ain’t that a mental trip.

Eff You, Officer Bernal

Police are essential to a thriving city.  They protect citizens and maintain order, I get it.  But I can’t help being a little irked by the Napoleon complex a lot of them have.  They walk around and talk like they run it, what with their authority, guns, and shiny badges.  I’m always up for bringing them down a peg or two, usually by being a smart ass (a stinging joke about donuts, or the Village People, perhaps?).

As long as you don’t do something wrong, they can’t do anything to you, right?  The problem is, there are a number of laws – a lot of them so minor – on which they could get us on the hook.  Try being followed by police on a long stretch of road – there’s a good chance they’ll have a reason to give you a ticket for something.

I get angry because it seems like the police can get you anytime they want, for whatever reason, no matter how slight.  There’s nothing you can do about it.  If there’s a law and you break it, you pay the consequences.  I’m not saying that what the police do is wrong.  I’m just saying it annoys me that they have that power, which they can apply as fickly as they want.

Yeah, I know I can be a prick when it comes to popos.  But, really, don’t you think they’re the pricks a lot of the time??

P.S.  This post is dedicated to Officer Bernal, who gave me a ticket today for “following too closely.”  He at first said he would let me off with a warning, but then decided to give me a ticket when I said things like “Did you find any dirt?” and “I’m a future lawyer, better luck next time” when he ran my license through a check for any arrests or probation violations.  What a sensitive guy.  He must’ve been mad because he was late to the…YMCA.  Har har har.

Who Killed Us on 9/11?

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding Bill O’Reilly’s appearance on The View, during which he made the statement “Muslims killed us on 9/11″.  Two hosts of the show subsequently walked off the set in protest.  In his defense, O’Reilly later acknowledged that he did not mean to demean all Muslims, but the wisdom of labeling the 9/11 terrorists as “Muslims” still has people talking.

In my opinion, the problem with failing to delineate between all Muslims and an extremist Muslim group is that it’s unfair to pool together persons with different ideologies under one, all-encompassing identity.  Al Qaeda has such a warped view of Islam that to treat them as the same as other Muslims, even linguistically, would be to completely abrogate the significant differences between the two groups.  Furthermore, even though the 9/11 terrorists committed their actions on behalf of all Muslims, it shouldn’t be the case that the unilateral decision on their part to act in the name of Islam necessarily means that all of Islam was thus involved.

Although the term “Muslim” can act simply as a descriptor, such a use of religion, by itself, to characterize a person and their vicious acts, is harmful because it does involve the religion as a whole.  This is different from using, say, race, as a descriptor because a racial group as a whole does not carry with a set of shared tenets or beliefs (as distinct from cultural customs) that pertains only to them.  On the other hand, to use an individual’s religion as the sole descriptor and as an indication of a person’s motivation is to impliedly include all other people of that religious faith, because they presumably share the same core beliefs, that are strictly specific to them, and that caused the individual to behave in such a manner.

Granted, when talking about history, we tend to use general terms to describe events, such as “The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor” or “The Americans invaded Afghanistan.”  In these cases, too, not all Japanese nor all Americans likely supported such action.  However, the use of such broad descriptive terms in these cases arises from the actions of governments who act as extensions of the people they serve, and thus relate to the nation as a whole.  National governments acting on behalf of their citizens is surely distinct from extremist groups acting on behalf of a religious sect, since a government is recognized as the legitimate head of a nation in a way that a group like Al Qaeda is not.

Yes, the people who carried out the 9/11 attacks were Muslim.  The problem with the phrase “Muslims” killed us” is not that it isn’t true.  The problem lies in its appropriateness, as it implicates an entire religion based on the actions of an extremist few.  And come on, we Americans, especially those opposed to the establishment of a mosque at Ground Zero, are the first to agree that there’s an important difference between what is correct (or constitutional, in the case of the mosque) and what is appropriate.

Movement

There are seasons for everything.  I can’t say that nothing stays constant, since I genuinely think that some things do.  But most everything changes, whether you want it to or not.

Disappointment comes when you can’t accept the fact that things change.  But the more you accept change, the more you’re able to hold on to at least a semblance of what you had before.  Letting go of something willingly, when the time comes, lets you share in a bit of that thing as it goes forward, rather than being a bitter outsider to its movement on.

Yeah, I’ve had a few beers in me.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The following is a note I wrote while in South Africa this past summer, chillin’ in a safari park with a book and a beer:

I’m nothing without the people around me.  I can see this when I’m alone, or especially when I’m alone, and even when I enjoy being alone.

I’ve developed a liking to traveling by myself.  There’s a certain freedom to taking my sweet time doing whatever I feel like at that instant.  Sometimes the most cinematic of moments can only be appreciated by standing there, absorbing it all in, without glancing over to see if someone else feels the same or wants to leave.

But the only reason I can travel alone is because I know that, ultimately, I’m not alone.  I can play the lone ranger bit for a while, but only because I have a home full of family and friends to look forward to.  It’d be a sad fate to always be a traveller and never a local.

The world is amazing, but it ain’t home.

Serenity Now

I’ve come across this adage many times:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

This past weekend, I heard someone speak about how troubled our hearts can be sometimes.  It can arise out of frustration at the actions of others, a reversion to bad habits we thought we had conquered, the realization that we may not attain a certain level of achievement, et cetera, et cetera.

The speaker offered a reason for why we feel this anxiety in our hearts: we try to be God.  We try to control our lives, including the people and things around us, in an attempt to assume the role of God.  When things don’t work out according to our master plans, according to the way we think everything should be designed, we become unsettled.  We try to make people like us, we try to cure our bad impulses, we try to be better than the person next to us…

Of course the problem isn’t the attempt.  Some things are changeable by our actions and we should strive in all situations for the very best.  But some things are out of our reach, and it’s the inability to let go (and let God) that distresses us.

That’s why the kind of wisdom in the saying above – to know the difference between the things I can and cannot change – is very cool.

The Lols

Some funny texts I’ve gotten recently:

Hella hella hangover headache….at 8pm….. (Thu, Aug 12, 2010)

Did u butt dial me?! (Fri, Aug 20, 2010)

Dawg.  Ui koveww open batr weddingssd (Sat, Aug 21, 2010)

Whats that?  Flugtag?  You kiss your mother with that mouth? (Sat, Aug 21, 2010)

Book Face

Sometimes, when I peruse through the pages of random Facebook friends and the friends of friends, I’m confronted by a feeling of guilt at how much I’ve wronged some of them in the past.  As I observe conversations amongst folks with whom I used to be on good terms and who no longer see me as a friend, it surprises me how petty I was and how badly I handled certain situations.  I wish I could say sorry to each of them, or at the very least, have a cordial run-in just to show that I myself harbor no hard feelings, but I don’t know how possible that is.

Hmm, I think I need to ease up on the Facebook-ing.