from the papers...

this is a most amazing poem. by the US poet laureate (2001-2003). we'll just pretend that i'm posting this with permission. :)

Billy Collins - On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

oh, how lovely

i like early morning.

it occurs to me that this statement is totally uncharacteristic of myself. allow some explanation.

i like being awake in the early morning. i detest the thought and abhor the act of waking up early in the morning. but...when circumstance requires, or if i just happen to have not actually gone to bed that night, i do enjoy being coherent and functional during the early morning hours.


sadly, the heaven's usually don't align correctly so as to make this a reality. i have to suffer through waking up most of the time to enjoy morning. and by then, all enjoyment has passed.

but...it will be noted that when this does occur, there is so much to be enraptured with at that time!

take, as an example, the above picture. no justice is rendered to the actual scene by the device used to make the image...but the general idea is understood. this is nearing the close of my favorite part of morning. i like the 45 minutes to an hour just before the sun rises...and a few minutes or ten past. that's the best time. that is when the birds are doing their thing, when the air is just crisp and tasty... when all that is wonderful about the world is at it's best.

i don't get the opportunity to see this part of the day very often--more than i probably want to...but i don't enjoy it nearly as often as i see it. but, a few times a year, i get to joy in the splendor of it.

it's always rather refreshing...especially if i don't have anything too particularly pressing that i have to be about. i think this is one reason i like camping so much. i usually wake up early when camping...and am perfectly happy to do so, with a general disregard for the time i went to bed. then i can just sit...and contemplate God's wonders, and relax from the worries and cares that usually jostle me throughout the day.

it's nice. it's really nice.

sadness

i was strolling to class this morning, and, as i was going past the library i started looking at all the beautiful flowers--something that i think people need to do a lot more of--when i noticed the most amazing spiderweb, all covered in dew.

i pulled out my phone and snapped an image...but i don't think this picture truly captures the beauty of what i saw. i need to carry nick around in my back pocket so he can take all my pictures for me.

as i crouched over the plant i had two thoughts/impressions:

1) how many people think i look silly hunched over on the sidewalk, staring at this random plant...
2) how many other people actually do things like this?

the second got me to thinking a little bit.

i've never seen anyone doing something similar. and it made me sad for all the other people passing by...some rushing somewhere, others just walking along. but...none of them stopping. none of them looking. no one taking the time to admire all the beauty around them.

maybe this is all because 3 minutes earlier i had seen an advertisement for employ with the byu ground crew that said something to the effect of "come help us beautify our campus..." but how many people actually take note of the wonderful things that are being done around them? and not just on the plane of landscape architecture... how many of the natural beauties that surround us each and every day are people missing out on because they are so pressed, so worried, so busy and stressed out with school, work, home matters--and all the crap that modern life shoves down our proverbial throats. how many people stop to listen to the wind blowing through the trees? probably not many...it's too much effort to take out the earbuds and pause the ipod.

as much as i love technology and am an advocate of using it and having it help us in our everyday... i often feel it saps humanity of so many of the characteristics that make us just that--human. it's leeching away from so many the ability to appreciate the inherent beauty of one's surroundings. it seems to rape so many of the charitable and virtuous qualities...leaving only the questions "what's in this for me? how will i be benefited?" leaving only the search for a quicker fix and more convenient way of reaching the end goal. what of the journey which ought make getting from point to point the reason for wandering?

granted, these are things that have always existed as part of human nature...but that doesn't make it any less sucky. and there seems to be an increase in such things... perhaps not. i can't say.

all i know is that the flowers do look nice these days.

i'hn fehrink dha nubneth

so...things keep moving.
most noticeably time.

i feel like i'm teetering on the edge of something huge. i think we can all more or less figure out what that is...

i've reached a stage where i feel a silly sense of nothing. i'm just kind of hovering or floating in some sort of ethereal neutrality that surrounds me...if that makes any particular coherent sense.

there's so much that's been done...and yet so much that still has to happen. and i feel that there's so much that i've missed out on getting done that ought to have been done long ago, but still's not done... GAAAHHHHHH!

for instance, i realize that there are still some announcements that i haven't sent out...and i'm getting married in a week and 2-ish days. (good freak, batman...!)

in other news, i'm realizing that this condition is pretty much general in my life. it's not just a getting-married-in-a-month-ordeal issue. i kinda feel like i'm existing in this state of limbo in all things pertaining to my mortal existence. it's weird...mildly disconcerting...and overall just sort of makes me feel like my life is quickly getting nowhere.

that's about all i have on that for the moment. my mind is so not here right now...

internet scavenger

so...these last few days i've felt like a detective of sorts. i've been roving the wide world of the world wide web, hunting down addresses and names and numbers and information. i even found a lot of what i was looking for.

you know...it's amazing the things you can find on the internet. it really is. i love the internet. have you ever googled your own name to see what you can find about yourself? it's kinda fun. i found some interesting things about myself--including some stuff i didn't even know existed!

but, yeah...i feel lately as though i'm being absorbed by this informatic mass of digital puke that ensnares our society in a tangled web of silliness. it makes me tired.
don't get me wrong...i love the internet. i love finding all sorts of new and exciting things through web 2.0...but it makes me sad sometimes to see how much of their lives people waste away doing nothing "useful" and "productive" in the world...just wasting away in front of their screens.

and speaking of which, i've really got to get away from this desk. i've been here WAY too long...

random thoughts at 2 am

so, i've been seeing a lot of movies lately. i blame this mostly on the fact that i "accidentally" subscribed to netflix... :)

anywho...this has led to me seeing several movies that deal with war, or are very closely related to war.

some of you may already know my particular thoughts on war (and by this, i mean most likely 3 of the 4 people i know who read this blog...). these have been deepened.

for those who don't know, my philosophies on war are as follows:

• war sucks...and should be avoided at all costs.
• i don't like war.
• there are few (and by that, i mean probably less than 5) things that could cause me to voluntarily go to war...this list does not include my country thinking it's a good idea to help out other countries with their problems. not that that's a bad thing to do...but there seem to be enough other people willing to make the sacrifice to help other nations that it doesn't necessitate my doing so--for which i'm thankful. coincidentally, if i were drafted for such a purpose, i would go. i wouldn't like it...but i'd do it. that is on the list.
• wars should be fought by the angry entities in question...and not by the masses under the control of said entities. i realize this becomes difficult to do at times...mostly because governments tend to be rather ethereal and non-physical entities. i'm still working on how to remedy that one...

so...like i was saying. these sentiments--and more than likely some others that i just haven't been able to make articulate yet--have become much reinforced over the last few days.

i really should have written this last night when i had all these thoughts in my head...but alas, i was sleepy, and i didn't have a computer at my disposal. oh well...

perhaps at this point i should clarify that i love my country very much. i have great respect for the enlisted men and women of this great nation who have and do look out for its welfare, as well as the greater altruistic causes that it concerns itself with. however...i don't feel it within my patriotic duties to get terribly involved in the life-threatening pursuits of other nation's affairs. perhaps this is merely a flaw in reasoning on my part. perhaps it is an ethical/moral weakness which i need to overcome. be that as it may. if i get sent to hell for that...i'm ok with it, for now at least.

but basically, i've been pondering...and i've decided that war--even more than i realized before--is silly. i can't explain it better than that. it's silly, and should be done away with. in general, neither of the military units that are facing one another, shooting bullets in each other's respective direction, has anything against the person werf is shooting at. in fact, i'm sure they would be really good friends if they just sat down and talked to each other and played a game of rummikub or something...

so...WHY do we need be out killing ourselves? there's no one that wants to be out there...everyone is just following the orders given by somebody a heck of lot higher up than werfself. and...eventually, it all comes down to politics (which, for those who are unaware, is the silliest game known to mankind!).

silly, silly politics.

and pride.

silly, silly pride.

why can't we all just be friends, play nice and talk out our differences? the world would be such a loverlier place to live...