M.etaphysical E.xistance

My thoughts, your mind, intertwined.

Posts Tagged Toothpaste

Winning the game of life

Mar 7

Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

So here we are, with another turning point in my life story that is taking me some time to actually realize and integrate into my higher consciousness.

(I’ll give you all a moment to catch up on those previously discussed topics, if needed…)

I am told by several reliable sources now that I am going to be moving to San Antonio, TX immediately after graduation to start a new full time, big-boy job with Rackspace.  I would be pretty excited.  For almost a decade now I’ve had this thought in the back of my head about working for a web hosting company, on the front lines of globally applied information technology.  I guess it’s really going to happen.

Mother is all excited.  Not that her “big bad beautiful baby boy” is moving 1,706 miles away to a different time zone, but that I am succeeding and all that general proud-parent stuff.  She has even started to plan the party, before I even officially accepted the position just this afternoon.

In the next 2.5 months there will be a lot to plan and arrange and get figured out.  Ideally we (Stacey and I) would have a while longer after graduation to get things figured out and plan for our future, but I guess that will have to come later.  It was commented to me about the quickness of everything, “Welcome to the real world.”  I’ve heard all sorts of commentary and complains about how quick and fast paced American culture and business is, so maybe this is it.

I don’t complain, though.  I am really quite fortunate.  I have been most of my life.  Maybe a prolonged record of good fortune means I’m good at what I do?  I make my own good fate, as it were?  Nah, those ideas are (a) too self-centered for this site and (b) thoughts that I will have to later expand on for a new class I’m in this quarter, and don’t want to get carried away too soon.

I’ve had all the toothpaste I want for a while now, but soon I’m going to be able to make decisions about things named after parts of US legal code, like 401k and IRA.  I personally can’t wait.  It feels like I’ll be more in control of the little universe that exists in my head.

But for now we have to wait still.  At least we aren’t waiting in faithful uncertainty anymore.  I know it’s going to be there waiting for me.  ”Your future awaits” as they say in the movies.  (And bad TV commercials.)  Although the uncertainty was a little soothing to the mind.  I was able to be confident still, to some degree, about being okay in the future, without having to actually know or prepare for any of the details.  But if my LAN party planning experience is any indication, I sort of like the details sometimes.  Again, master of my universe.

I feel like starting a huge poster board checklist.  And since I suck at arts and crafts, it will be a web-based poster board checklist.  Interactive progress bars and everything.  ”Here are all the things between Andrew & Stacey and the real world.”

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I Want

Sep 18

Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

I want to be able to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it, no matter what.

I want to own a private jet that goes between Rochester and North Carolina whenever we want.

I want security.

I want to feel secure in my future.

I want to not have to worry week to week or month to month about anything.

I want to be happy.

I want to have all the latest and funnest stuff.

I want to be able to  decide what and how I use the things I have.

. . . . . . . . .

I don’t want to sound like a brat or ungrateful or anything.  I’m just saying.  I guess there are a lot of various things that everyone wants for one reason or another.  That is life.  That’s being human, with all the desires and hopes and dreams that come with that.  Being happy and content is about finding a way to “make do” with what we have and can achieve.  Happiness can be a choice, even.  Forget the fact that you don’t have everything you want, forget that you are only mortal, forget that you do not have access to limitless resources.  Just forget it all, and be happy.  Blissful ignorance.  (I have to say, in the last couple years I have been finding connections to that phrase/concept a lot more…)

I mean, what is “make do” supposed to mean anyways?  Again, are we supposed to just forget what we want and what we need to achieve it, and do something else?  Be something else?  That is not the same.  I’m sorry, universe, but I will not be fooled like that.  I cannot just make do with what I have.  I can accept what I have.  I can accept it as a temporary condition which will be changed in the near future.

But to me, it sounds sort of sad and a lot of hopeless, to just be happy and make do.  What good are these dreams if not to be achieved eventually?  Whatever process it was that created us and our minds gave us this ability to desire.  It has to be good for something.  It is at the very core of all of human progress and innovation, isn’t it?  Is that its only purpose?  Are all desires supposed to be for the betterment of mankind alone?  Looking at the most accurate guide to the future we have, the Star Trek timeline, it was not until the human race went through a third world war, first contact with alien races, and the total collapse of the global economy that all the nations even started to come together for any actual common purpose.  It was another 150 years or so until the Utopian ”United Federation of Planets” came together.  Look at what had to happen first, before man was ready to want only for his fellow man.  Are we just not there yet?  Am I still allowed to want for myself, at least until the men with the pointed ears land?

I don’t have any real answers here.  As with every other existential question I pose to myself, I will answer just with what I have been doing so far.  I will continue to want and desire and dream.  I will continue to be driven by that towards my goals, and I will achieve them.  That is not a question.  That is a statement.  Period.  Another period.  (I want to make sure you feel as final about that statement as I do.  Period.  End parentheses.)  There will be some day when I am completally and 100% content with life, the universe and everything.  That is not today.

For now I will continue to “make do.”  I will try not to whine and moan too much about what I don’t have.  Although, right about now I would really like that airplane.

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Still holding on

Mar 25

Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Here we are, almost 4 months into my new life with Cisco and North Carolina.  Time is just flying right by.  The popular belief is this means I have been having fun.  I can’t think of a better, stronger word for it so I guess “fun” will have to do.

This time away from my previous world has brought things into a different focus.

Avid readers will know of my previous fixation on toothpaste.  I now have the means to get all the different kinds of toothpaste I want.  It feels good to have those options.

Along with the toothpaste we desired other qualities of life.  Some are even starting to fall into place.  In the past couple years I have kept my cosmic expectations fairly low.  I do this for practical reasons.  I know what I want, I know what my priorities are, and I plan to live a long life so there is no rush.  This has helped my general happiness too, as described in my previous post.

But things never work out as you plan.  That is something else I have always been aware of, but never really had to contend with.  Does this also apply to when things work out better then expected?  I have always accepted the things that happen to and around me which I have no direct control over.  (Because, I have no direct control over them.)  These days life has been such that I am just accepting all these wonderful things that happen to me just as I would some trouble or turmoil I would have to deal with.  My fail-safe for getting through anything is starting to catch false-positives.  (Just a little computer scientist reference there.)

What has this all caused?  Well, life still happens.  All these wonderful things still do and have happened.  The interesting part is that I don’t know how I feel about it all yet.  If I do know how I feel about it, I don’t know if that is how I should feel, or will end up feeling about it.  I am aware of the fact that once this c’est la vie attitude wears off I may feel something different.  Is that normal?  If there were hypothetically other people out there who reacted to good and bad fortune in the same way like this, would this all be normal?

The worst part about it all is that there is a delayed ultimate reaction to everything.  I can think about and mull over anything to my hearts content, but I am in the end stuck waiting on the sidelines for my heart to make up its final decision.

Again, no worries.  No rush.  What will happen will happen and I’ll deal with that too.  Eventually.

I would like to note to the bulk of the handful of readers out there that this is all meant to be somewhat vague.  The exact specifics are not mentioned in here as to not clutter up the rest of the discussion.  Also, they are not mentioned here because I haven’t decided yet how I ultimately feel about them.  Oh bother…

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The Sequence of Life

Jan 4

Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I, like many people my age and/or being at this point in life, am thinking about what comes next.  I can look back and see the “sweet innocence” of childhood or the self-imposed stress and problems of adolescence.  I can look to people further along in life then I am and see careers, families, responsibilities, and all sorts of “exciting” things.  But what happens in-between?

I know how the game is supposed to end.  The main character (me, if you haven’t been following along) gets the girl in the end and they ride off into the (Martian) sunset together (in their hover car) to start a family together and live happily ever after.  (Some details filled in from personal fantasy.)  I look at myself and my peers, and I get the impression that I have a clearer picture of this then most.  Additionally, I seem to either be more worried, less concerned, or more sure of how I will achieve these life goals.  I have yet to come to a definitive conclusion on which of those three it is.

Popular belief is that I somehow acquire either (a) copious scholarships or (b) lots of debt to attend a college of my choice for several years, get a nice middle-class job afterwards with which I can manage any debt I may have, buy a house, car, wife, kids, and all the toothpaste I want.  But what if I can’t find all that on the store shelves?  What if, assuming for the moment that I manage to get to this fanciful point in life, I end up not finding the right car, or the right person, or the right brand of toothpaste.  Falling back to popular belief, I would “move on.”  Settle for the peppermint when what I really wanted was wintergreen.  (they never have wintergreen these days…)  Personally, I refuse to settle.  I am willing to “make do with what I have” or to “improvise”, but I will never settle.  I know what I want, and one way or another, I will have it.  (even if I have to cut down my own wintergreen tree…)

But remember, we have assumed that I will be given the honor of being presented the choice of toothpaste or woman or car.  I still have to get that job with which to buy her/it.  (Lets pretend I’m referring to the car as “her” and save the slavery/prostitution implications for the next post.)  To get this job, I either have to be the luckiest person I know, or have to jump through all sorts of high-strung hoops to prove my worth.  Even when it seems like you will never get the degree or job you want.  Even when the fiscal and logistical requirements to get the degree or the job seem impossible.

I just have to keep on going.  Never ending, never wavering.  Or else, no toothpaste.

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