So, I thought I would share something. I've gotten into reading a bit again lately, with some help from my sister and others. Tonight I started "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck. For those of you who don't know, Steinbeck is awesome. Go read Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, or like anything else of his if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Anyways, I read the first 'chapter' of the book, and I was like: This needs to be shared. It just struck me by how awesome and simple and well-written and true and beautiful it was. So I thought I would share it. Just so you know how special you are to me, I couldn't find the text online, so I'm typing the whole thing up for you.
Don't worry, it's not very long at all. You're not that special.
Let us begin:
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and the vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of a stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.
When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it.
Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself, no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.
Isn't that wicked good writing? Don't you just want to go on an adventure!
I do.
December 25, 2010
December 15, 2010
Johnson & Johnson
I didn't get a lot out of seminary my senior year. This was pretty much entirely my fault, of course. It's a defense mechanism, I think. When you're doing things you know you're not supposed to, you have to sort of shut off your mind to the good stuff. If you take in the good stuff, you'll be inspired to remove the bad. So, if you want to keep the bad, you have to block out the good.
Regardless, I remember one seminary lesson very well. It was in like November, I think. I remember it because it was a day or two before I was supposed to buy and use an "8-ball" of cocaine with a certain German friend of mine.
I was excited. We both were. We'd never tried it, we'd both always wanted to. And here we were with the unique opportunity to have this life-changing experience.
Several times throughout my high school career I had almost done it, but something always got in the way. Not this time, though, I said. This time things would finally work out.
Then, at seminary that day, we came in to find two large brown pieces of paper stretched out on the ground, in between the tables. We didn't discuss them for most of the lesson, but eventually we got into some relevant scriptures (I don't remember what they were) and Sister Hull brought them up.
They were paths, she said. This was no big deal for me, everyone knows there's a good path and a bad path, a straight and narrow and a wide and windy. I sat back in my chair and prepared to tune out yet another lecture on choosing the right and all that jazz.
But then she said something I hadn't really thought of before. "Each of these paths take you to certain place. You can't follow one path, and expect to end up where the other path takes you." This struck me as exactly what I was doing. She gave some examples of people she'd seen do this and more and more I realized that she was basically describing me perfectly. In my head at that time I was thinking, "Yeah, yeah, I'm doing all this bad stuff and spiraling downwards pretty hardcore, but eventually I'll get my life in order and I'll marry in the temple and everything will be great and dandy. I just need this little time of doing bad, but eventually everything will work out fine."
That's not really how it works. If you're trying to get to the north pole you can't just take a southwestern road and say "Well I'll turn around eventually," because the fact is you're just getting further and further away from where you want to be.
I think this applies to non-spiritual matters, too. I've never been a particularly good student, mostly because it's never really been a priority for me. Almost always I'll start out the class with a few good weeks, then stop doing assignments or going to class or any of that. Inevitably, midterms roll around and I have a C or a D. "Don't worry, Ed," I say. "You'll get an A at the end of the semester, you're only halfway there, plenty of time to change it." But, surprise surprise, nothing changes and at the end of the semester I don't have an A. You get X for doing Y, and A for doing B. You can't do B and expect to get X. Or something like that (don't judge my variable analogies, math was one of those classes I didn't get an A in).
The point? Let's all get A's.
And that's the story of the day I didn't snort coke. Yay.
Regardless, I remember one seminary lesson very well. It was in like November, I think. I remember it because it was a day or two before I was supposed to buy and use an "8-ball" of cocaine with a certain German friend of mine.
I was excited. We both were. We'd never tried it, we'd both always wanted to. And here we were with the unique opportunity to have this life-changing experience.
Several times throughout my high school career I had almost done it, but something always got in the way. Not this time, though, I said. This time things would finally work out.
Then, at seminary that day, we came in to find two large brown pieces of paper stretched out on the ground, in between the tables. We didn't discuss them for most of the lesson, but eventually we got into some relevant scriptures (I don't remember what they were) and Sister Hull brought them up.
They were paths, she said. This was no big deal for me, everyone knows there's a good path and a bad path, a straight and narrow and a wide and windy. I sat back in my chair and prepared to tune out yet another lecture on choosing the right and all that jazz.
But then she said something I hadn't really thought of before. "Each of these paths take you to certain place. You can't follow one path, and expect to end up where the other path takes you." This struck me as exactly what I was doing. She gave some examples of people she'd seen do this and more and more I realized that she was basically describing me perfectly. In my head at that time I was thinking, "Yeah, yeah, I'm doing all this bad stuff and spiraling downwards pretty hardcore, but eventually I'll get my life in order and I'll marry in the temple and everything will be great and dandy. I just need this little time of doing bad, but eventually everything will work out fine."
That's not really how it works. If you're trying to get to the north pole you can't just take a southwestern road and say "Well I'll turn around eventually," because the fact is you're just getting further and further away from where you want to be.
I think this applies to non-spiritual matters, too. I've never been a particularly good student, mostly because it's never really been a priority for me. Almost always I'll start out the class with a few good weeks, then stop doing assignments or going to class or any of that. Inevitably, midterms roll around and I have a C or a D. "Don't worry, Ed," I say. "You'll get an A at the end of the semester, you're only halfway there, plenty of time to change it." But, surprise surprise, nothing changes and at the end of the semester I don't have an A. You get X for doing Y, and A for doing B. You can't do B and expect to get X. Or something like that (don't judge my variable analogies, math was one of those classes I didn't get an A in).
The point? Let's all get A's.
And that's the story of the day I didn't snort coke. Yay.
December 12, 2010
Gotta name 'em all...Better.
Wouldn't it be awesome to name something? To discover some island off the coast of Madagascar and get to call it whatever you want? Or to find some new type of bug in a cave in your backyard and get to choose what it would called for ever and ever? Wouldn't that be awesome?
Yes, it would.
When I was a kid I wondered once whether God had different names for all the animals than we did. Does He call a Zebra a Zebra? What did He call it before humans ever made a name for it? We discover new animals all the time, does He just call them what he knows they're going to be named, or does he have a special name for everything that we don't know (that's probably it, actually).
If that's the case, what happens to all those Alpha Taxonomists when they get to heaven? Is it basically like, "I know you spent your entire life classifying every living thing, but here's the updated list" *hands them giant book*.
That would suck.
I was quite a Pokemon fan in my younger (read: current) days. As a wee child I would always be amazed at how awesome all the names were. I wondered what sort of creative genius they must have holed up in their Tokyo laboratory, agonizing day in and day on just the right name for each individual Pokemon.
I imagined that he looked something like a cross between this guy:
And this one:
\
(Am I the only one who thinks he has an eerie resemblance to Henry B. Eyering?)
It was only later in life that I realized the Pokemon names were more likely made up by this guy:
Armed with only a Japanese-to-English dictionary and a rudimentary knowledge of zoological classifications, (perhaps his father was an Alpha Taxonomist), this boy was able to single handedly name all 150 Pokemon in my Pokedex.
For instance he might have seen this Pokemon:
And said to himself: ラット!
After he plugged that into his translator, he would have said: RAT!
しかし、あまりにも不足していると、それは長くする必要があります!
*Translating*
"But that is too short, I must make it longer!"
So he would have carefully drawn out several more letters, probably on this paper.
Then, with a smile on his face, he would hold up his final product.
Rattata.
149 to go.
Yes, it would.
When I was a kid I wondered once whether God had different names for all the animals than we did. Does He call a Zebra a Zebra? What did He call it before humans ever made a name for it? We discover new animals all the time, does He just call them what he knows they're going to be named, or does he have a special name for everything that we don't know (that's probably it, actually).
If that's the case, what happens to all those Alpha Taxonomists when they get to heaven? Is it basically like, "I know you spent your entire life classifying every living thing, but here's the updated list" *hands them giant book*.
That would suck.
I was quite a Pokemon fan in my younger (read: current) days. As a wee child I would always be amazed at how awesome all the names were. I wondered what sort of creative genius they must have holed up in their Tokyo laboratory, agonizing day in and day on just the right name for each individual Pokemon.
I imagined that he looked something like a cross between this guy:
And this one:
\(Am I the only one who thinks he has an eerie resemblance to Henry B. Eyering?)
It was only later in life that I realized the Pokemon names were more likely made up by this guy:
Armed with only a Japanese-to-English dictionary and a rudimentary knowledge of zoological classifications, (perhaps his father was an Alpha Taxonomist), this boy was able to single handedly name all 150 Pokemon in my Pokedex.
For instance he might have seen this Pokemon:
And said to himself: ラット!
After he plugged that into his translator, he would have said: RAT!
しかし、あまりにも不足していると、それは長くする必要があります!
*Translating*
"But that is too short, I must make it longer!"
So he would have carefully drawn out several more letters, probably on this paper.
Then, with a smile on his face, he would hold up his final product.
Rattata.
149 to go.
December 10, 2010
v+l=Y
Fact of the day: I no longer know how to write a capital Y. Every time I need to write one I pause, panic, and eventually draw a high "v" with a stick under it. It looks retarded.
This wouldn't be such an issue except I know for a fact that I used to be able to write them.
What's next?
This wouldn't be such an issue except I know for a fact that I used to be able to write them.
What's next?
December 8, 2010
All sorts of bassoonery
I went to a concert last night.
No, no, not one of these:
One of these:
I didn't go in with a lot of expectations. Which turned out to be good, because I would have been sorely disappointed otherwise.
The main reason I didn't enjoy this concert was how distracted I was. There were several aspects of the concert that were downright distracting to me.
For instance, the people with the curvy trumpets. What are they doing with their other hand? Do they put it in the trumpet mouth, or is that just an illusion? Also, I'll be straight with you, I don't know what an oboe looks like. But it sounds like a weird looking instrument. So when these guys came out with these giant wood things, I assumed they were oboes. I was later informed that they are, in fact, bassoons. Either way, you can bet none of the players looked as classy as this.
Before last night, if you had asked me to pick a band instrument to be proficient at, it would have been easy. The saxophone. Mostly so I could hang out in blues clubs and tell women I "play the sax". Also, because this guy is awesome:
You'd be surprised at how much of my life has been influenced by the Simpsons. But that's a story for another time.
So, while I've always wanted to play the sax, I find myself wondering if perhaps the bassoon is not my imaginary calling after all. It's bigger, more obscure, and perhaps most importantly, not as important. When the band plays, I can recognize the saxophone. I can recognize the flute and the trombone and the cymbals. But for the life of me I have no idea what a bassoon sounds like. For all I know, these guys could just be chilling in the back for the whole concert, talking about how awesome their bassoons are. (2 points if you get the alliteration on that one)
But, I digress. A man can only talk about bassoons for so long. There was one other aspect of the concert that really peeved my privates (don't ask).
What's with the clapping, guys?
It just keeps going, and going. Not even at the end of the concert, where I can understand giving a general "Right on" to the performers. Nope. After every piece, we feel the need to just clippity clap it up for like 5 minutes. I give a good 10 seconds of clapping, and then sit there awkwardly as everyone is going crazy like they just saw the greatest performance of their life.
But, such is life. Full of mysteries and disappointments. Failures and triumphs.
So it goes.
No, no, not one of these:
One of these:
I didn't go in with a lot of expectations. Which turned out to be good, because I would have been sorely disappointed otherwise.
The main reason I didn't enjoy this concert was how distracted I was. There were several aspects of the concert that were downright distracting to me.
For instance, the people with the curvy trumpets. What are they doing with their other hand? Do they put it in the trumpet mouth, or is that just an illusion? Also, I'll be straight with you, I don't know what an oboe looks like. But it sounds like a weird looking instrument. So when these guys came out with these giant wood things, I assumed they were oboes. I was later informed that they are, in fact, bassoons. Either way, you can bet none of the players looked as classy as this.
Before last night, if you had asked me to pick a band instrument to be proficient at, it would have been easy. The saxophone. Mostly so I could hang out in blues clubs and tell women I "play the sax". Also, because this guy is awesome:
You'd be surprised at how much of my life has been influenced by the Simpsons. But that's a story for another time.
So, while I've always wanted to play the sax, I find myself wondering if perhaps the bassoon is not my imaginary calling after all. It's bigger, more obscure, and perhaps most importantly, not as important. When the band plays, I can recognize the saxophone. I can recognize the flute and the trombone and the cymbals. But for the life of me I have no idea what a bassoon sounds like. For all I know, these guys could just be chilling in the back for the whole concert, talking about how awesome their bassoons are. (2 points if you get the alliteration on that one)
But, I digress. A man can only talk about bassoons for so long. There was one other aspect of the concert that really peeved my privates (don't ask).
What's with the clapping, guys?
It just keeps going, and going. Not even at the end of the concert, where I can understand giving a general "Right on" to the performers. Nope. After every piece, we feel the need to just clippity clap it up for like 5 minutes. I give a good 10 seconds of clapping, and then sit there awkwardly as everyone is going crazy like they just saw the greatest performance of their life.
But, such is life. Full of mysteries and disappointments. Failures and triumphs.
So it goes.
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