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Life Archives

Ostensibly, thoughts on Jesus

Posted at age 29.

I am nonreligious, yet religion fascinates me. In particular, evolving knowledge of Jesus has separated his life and teachings from my notion of the Church.

As a young Wisconsinite, I learned the Church, God and Jesus are a conglomeration, like AOL-Time Warner. Or was it the Holy Spirit and Yahweh and the Lord Pope? The details eluded me, but there were definitely three entities, all the same. Or maybe I am thinking of the trifecta of less important Eastern competitors, Buddhism and Islam and Judaism. Religion was nebulous. All I knew for sure was in America we are united, under one monopoly of God.

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Day of Silence at Hartford Union High School in April 2006

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Darkest before dawn

Posted at age 28.

I know now I cannot sleep. I probably knew before, but I tried getting lost in music, vaguely hoping my consciousness be released. Trying to get lost is something I am not well equipped to handle, at any rate. I know exactly where I am. The vibrations in my earphones, captivating as they seem, somehow serve only to bring my thoughts into sharper focus. I can no longer contain my mind; the thoughts burst out, and I must write, lest I lose all hope of honoring them, of honoring myself. I am being haunted by the breaking heart of the woman who used to own my house, and I think that is why I must depart.

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What do you try to do every day?

Posted at age 28.

I haven’t been very social this year, spending most of my time at home. While spending some time with a friend, I pondered posting a question to Facebook and seeing if anyone would respond. I wrote:

For those who want to get to know each other and have the time, please answer:
What do you try to do every day?

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Mania de junio

Posted at age 28.

A month ago I wrote a sort of history of my years of friendship with someone suffering with manic bipolar disorder. I concluded “Mania de Mayo” with a comment on my tiredness and a hopefully sarcastic comment about the type of friend I am. Not much good has happened since then regarding my friend, it seems to me, and his new friends along with some old are now organizing for a possible impending psychotic episode.

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Mania de mayo

Posted at age 27.

I haven’t written much for a few weeks, but I’m still here. I’ve mostly been trying to focus on the programming projects and not worry about the brain exercises and other tasks, hoping this would be temporary, and soon I could get back to progressing on everything. But of course I have had diversions, both intentional and unexpected. This month my mind has been on relationships. First, romantic ones, and then for the past ten days, on a friend in need. It is on the latter I now write.

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First stabs at moving on

Posted at age 27.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with or thinking about my ex these past few months, so perhaps it isn’t so strange I’ve felt myself falling more and more for him, despite having broken up nearly a year and a half ago.

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Feeling animals, consciousness and life

Posted at age 27.

More and more I’ve been thinking about life on this planet. In a strange way, it started with reading “The Untethered Soul” by Michael A. Singer. The book has done wonders to catalyze improving my outlook and thinking, which is a story for another time, but it also made me think about thinking and about what makes us us. In the deepest sense, we are not our bodies, nor are we our thoughts or emotions. Those things all somehow exist in front of us, and we can get involved with them or modulate them or ignore them as we please.

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Domingo took this photo one time we went to explore Golden Gate Park. Seeing him up close made me miss my degus!

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Are we all equally intelligent?

Posted at age 27.

I have a deeper sense of the truth of, or more certainty of, the notion everyone is equally intelligent. (If I were high or drunk, this increased certainty may not ultimately even be because of smoking pot or drinking, for I could feasibly have arrived at this position by doing the same mental work without pot. But even then, perhaps that work would not have been performed any time soon were it not for the pot.) It’s possible this question might already be answered one way or the other, and I could gain that knowledge simply by reading the right things. But I admitted to myself I don’t have certainty one way or the other, and even knowing the information may already exist, instead of trying to look it up, I reasoned out cases for and against with Mike. After spending several hours in thought experiments, and even without totally proving to myself the truth of the notion, or totally disproving it, I can confidently say I have more respect for the notion everyone might be equally intelligent. Which is to say I can confidently say I believe it more. I could find out tomorrow this has been decidedly proven in the negative, but right now I’m not sure being shown it is false could possibly convince me. I’m not sure it couldn’t, either, though. Perhaps I will feel differently then. Perhaps in that moment I will look back at this as a crazy hallucination, or perhaps I’ll even remember it as a dream. Or perhaps I won’t remember it at all. How can I say with certainty, then, what I am feeling now really means anything at all?

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Being myself

Posted at age 27.

As I neared my home, I spotted another man on the sidewalk ahead. There were no street lights nearby, but I could tell he was middle aged and substantial. The fear crept back, but this time it wasn't a safety fear, but rather a social fear. It was just the two of us. I was determined in my pace, but I also felt drawn to the man's eyes as I approached.

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A moment at Burning Man

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Here I lie awake

Posted at age 26.

It’s late. I have a morning flight. Time for sleep. And I’ve been trying. My friend, the Buddhist, has long been slumbering, but I stayed up catching up on work. Though I wasn’t at my most productive, I wasn’t really sleepy.

He is beside me, facing away. His left arm decided to go adventuring, and it came to rest across my chest. No big deal; it’s nice to be close, even if it wasn’t a conscious choice. I’ll take what I can get, after all.

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The bar and the burger

Posted at age 26.

Not having had a hamburger for about a week, it was time. I didn’t have to feel bad about it as I usually do, for while I was indeed in a foreign country, the United Kingdom isn’t like China or India, where I should obviously be experiencing something other than a burger.

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First London burger. $17 & not so big so hopefully is delicious! Possibly came with an entire bottle of ketchup, which I declined.


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Pico Iyer: The art of stillness

Posted at age 26.

This talk was fascinating, and made me think (more!) about my job situation and what I want to do with my life. While Iyer promotes going nowhere, this talk (and his other, “Where is home?“) actually made me think more about whether I want to spend more time living in other countries.

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Beauty and lies of Foxconn suicides

Posted at age 26.

Tim shared with me a post from the blog Nao, which comments on the conflict between China’s working class and the state. The post offers English translations of some of Foxconn laborer Xu Lizhi’s poetry and of his obituary in Shenzhen Evening News. That’s right, Xu is dead, having survived 24 years before taking his life. He followed in the steps of many others, and certainly won’t be the last to do so.

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Goodbye San Francisco

Posted at age 25.

Twenty one months in San Francisco to the day, and I've decided to move on, for now. I still do not feel like I am really moving away, but the magnitude of this all is finally starting to sink in. I intended to write and reflect earlier, but 20 minutes before my flight boards is better than never.

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Inception’ sparks hours of discussion

Posted at age 25.

I loved that most of "Inception" seems plausible due to one new thing taken for granted in the movie itself. In this case, that new thing is the device that links sleepers via some medical tubes such that they can share dreams. This is great because it doesn't strike me as being impossible. Humans do not fully understand how the brain functions in sleep; we don't even know the purpose of dreaming. That makes every crazy thing in "Inception" seem as though it could happen, possibly in the near future. Or maybe it's already happened?

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"Inception" provokes many questions about the way our minds work and about what's possible

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The secret to better life

Posted at age 25.

I’ve watched this video twice now, and for some reason it made me decide to write little blogs about videos I watch that make me think. This is mostly so I can review the thoughts I took from the video, hopefully helping me internalize them.

I stumbled on this one while watching a TED series called “Lifehacks” on Netflix with Travis, and it turned out more interesting than I thought it would be at first.

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