2 days worth of inspiration.

Have had an excellent past two days. I acquired a new job yesterday, started it today, and enjoyed it for the most part. I'm working in the produce section of a organic market. Job description: Fun with veggies. I also got some work done on my thesis and made contact with some peeps that I needed to for my immanent internship at a local law firm. 

This is much more achievement than I am used too. 

FURTHERMORE, I went on an awesome urban adventure with a childhood friend and took some really cool photographs of an abandoned warehouse on Cleveland's east side AND I reignited my passion for snowboarding since I went to Alpine Valley this evening.  Looky here:

Cleveland Warehouse

Alpine Valley

Good times indeed.

I have found that there has to be some sort of passion behind being driven in life. Where bursts of passion come from, I do not know. They do though, and life is all the more richer. Maybe these bursts of spirit arise from interactions with others.  Inspiring people. People who care about you. People to care about.

It does not seem like I can will myself into states of enthusiasm. Seems like most poeple are like that. We feed off of each others morale. We are morale cannibals, if you will.

I think the biggest thing that we humans are blind to is the possibilities that lay before us. People who inspire me create seeds in my mind which show the possibilities of our collective life together. Carl Sagan inspires me. Watch the whole thing. It's worth it.

Day 2

I realize that this blog is more of a form of self therpy and not "designed" for any audience other than myself and whoever stumbles across this. I am not trying to turn this into a cigarette quitting or drug rehab blog. Its about striving for excellence. There are plenty of ways that one can excel with addictions (E.G. Freud, Morrison, Van Gogh...) and there are plenty of ways to slack without addiction (e.g. chronic TV watchers). From now on, I will focus on commenting on methods/ideas i find useful in being satiated with life.

That being said, I still haven't smoked a cig since yesterday and have not drank or gotten high in a while. As of now, I will not keep posting silly updates like that - their boring, and don't really pertain to excellence. One can only thrive if one focuses on his or her positive practices. If you focus too hard on your abstinence from negative practices, you quickly abandon any hope of replacing those habits with a joyful existence. You would either wilt into an Eeyore like apathy, or collapse into some form or other of bad habits.

What did i learn today??? It takes a lot of concentration to do what you want to do. I may be unusually bad, but I have found it very difficult to keep focused on my tasks at hand steadily. I think I am avoiding something! I have a 100 page thesis due in 3 months that I really need to get cracking on, and don't know why i can't motivate myself to do it!!!

Avoidance is sooooo irrational. let's see... I guess I avoid it either because I fear that I will fail, am over-confident that i can do it last minute, and/or am just plain lazy. Probably a mixture of the three. If I fear failure, the only reasonable thing to do is work as hard and as best as I can on it till its done... If you give something your all, you can't fail in every sense (the most important one - i.e. you don't fail to grow). If i am so confident that I can do it last minute, then why don't I either get it done now and get it out of my way, so that i can move on towards other productive healthy activity, or do something else in the meantime before the last minute? Finally, If I am just plain lazy, why don't I just start now or give it up because its only making it harder by waiting? Obviously procrastination, avoidance, lazyness, over-confidence etc... are terribly irrational and counter productive. So, should we eliminate irrational things in general from our lifestyle? I don't think so. I know that irrational things are capable of motivating me to do counter-productive things. I want to know if they are capable of motivating me to do productive things. But what would a irrational productive habit look like? Tomorrow...

I moved in the right direction today. Complete sobriety, minus my last cig. I was only online for about an hour, got some reading done and spent quality time with my family. Most importantly I am going to bed early.

Thoreau always talks about the dawn as the best part of life. I think i know what he means. It is better to be waking to the world. That is, If you look at the world anew with ceaseless fascination, it will provide endless joy. Zen calls this approach "beginners mind." Give up your assumptions about how the world operates and let it reveal itself to you. There is plenty to listen to. I think Hiedegger has a word for this too. I can't remember. Basically though his idea entails an approach to the world akin to the way we would approach an artifact we discover without knowing its structure or purpose. When we approach things with awe, and let ourselves discover qualities of nature without prejudice, we also burrow deep into our nature.

This is where i hope to find happiness.

Day 1

Today is the first day of my conscious transformation. I will be documenting as best as possible what it feels like to attempt, as whole-heartedly as possible, self-actualization. Obviously, "self-actualization" is a nebulous and subjective term. I do not pretend it to mean perfection. I merely want to concentrate on keeping my eye on the prize. The prize is happiness, satisfaction, wholeness, joy, freedom, love, confidence, truth. I hypothesize that these all come more or less bundled in the same set of practices.

So I am changing my practices.

Quick personal history: Great Childhood; felt dissonance around 5th grade when I became socially conscious - did some slightly rebellious things with my brother during early teen years; During middle school fell into both the counter-culture of the skate/bmx/snowboard/punk world; and simultaneously into the popularity world of school; In the beginning of high school I started drinking and smoking (magic herbs and cigs), and always had mixed feelings about it. I liked drinking and smoking with friends, but quickly realized that it is a boring road to no where. I still kept doing it anyways, always wanting to stop in the back of my mind. I struggle with this today. I have quit drinking, and cigs, and weed all multiple times (for months, sometimes). I did all of them yesterday - Obviously, i have failed. I am addicted to them. These practices make me lethargic, easily distracted, and unproductive. I hate it. This is what i need to change.

Part of the issue is that I have always wanted to be with all of my friends, who I essentially met before I became a degenerate. Since they are all mixed up in the same self-destructive practices as me, it makes it feel o.k. and justifies my doing it. It is a problem of group think. But, since in the past I have attempted to excommunicate myself from my friends and failed, It might be better to approach it this way: I can still be friends with them, but just not hang out with them on a daily basis. I need to build the habit of abstaining from self-destructive practices independently from them, while i build relationships that revolve around HEALTHY forms of activity. Luckily, I have met a girl recently that helps me do just that!

I would ideally like to still have fun with my friends once or twice a week, my girl every day, and spend serious time everyday working towards my positive goals. I spend way too much time on the internet and dicking around with my friends.

Right now, I am going on a solo hike and smoking the last cigarette from a pack which I hope to be my last. I'll post again later today to see what changes I have started and if I have wasted less time. I don't consider hiking a waste of time, but an essential ingredient for my self-realization. I like, maybe too much, reflection.

An Attempt at Thriving

Tomorrow, I will attempt to thrive.