Money comes and goes. Either you have it or you survive as best you can and as long as you can without it. There are not enough resources in the world to fulfill the wants, needs or desires of every single person. You are not special. If there are 10 people in the room 2 of them are likely to be murderers or thieves. We all just ants in an ant hill trying to survive until the sun explodes. Pride comes before the fall.
It is often hard to differentiate between what we need and what we want. Everything is a soup of data, monkeys and configuration. The things we want will cloud the things we need like musical ringtones when you call a phone - who needs to hear music while you wait someone to pick up? ANSWER THE PHONE! You are wasting my time.
I bought some airfilters online. It cost me the same amount in taxes just to clear it at customs though cheaper than buying a plane ticket and flying to England to get them myself. Everything is slowly moving towards choas - especially cars. Cars are like your favourite cheesecake - it goes bad look at it for too long BUT you will have none to eat later if you eat it too quickly. There is some median rate at which you should eat cheese cake and still be able to enjoy it but I have yet to discover it.
Everyone appears to live in their own special version of the world. A world in which there is a constant need to re-affirm, to be part of the good group - social justice warriors. Somethings you have to let go in order to live. Eventually everything melts into one or two streams of thought, battling each other in a war which both sides end up losing. This would be simple if it were just one world but the more you know - the older you get - the more sides you see. We are constantly battling between different sides of a complicated shell that you cannot see. Until you pull the earth around you and make it your bed. At which point nothing matters.
There is a point where no one can agree on anything because their view is rooted in their own experiences or things they hear - there is no big picture. No substance of reality. No monkey in the tree. It is all the sound of leaves coming from the mouth of someone that heard them. How much tooth paste should you put on your toothbrush? Are your teeth absorbing calcium? Is toothpaste merely a foaming agent? Are toothpaste advertisements purposely making me use more toothpaste so that I buy more? Are you building a ship to wreak upon the shore?
In the end it might not matter. It might be a case that we are just flying though space hoping that we survive long enough to actually achieve something significant. Interesting times. You think of the worst things in the world, things that you are afraid to even utter; then you step back and you will see that it is really not that bad at all.
The things that I do not "like" keep me on a path. Control is a strong word. I would rather say they are the rudder that guides my ship. No regrets. Some people like ice cream even though it makes them sick. I am the kind of person who would find a better alternative than icecream so that I can redirect my efforts towards something less likely to kill me. Why torture yourself with barriers and wants? I am not one to make excuses but I will avoid. What I cannot avoid permanently I carefully build a tower around. It is not personal. I am not a flower waiting to blossom.
Some people spend their time trying to separate themselves from themselves. Searching for something to hold onto. Trying to go platinum with no features. I have realized long ago that I am apart of the big machinery of life. It is more apparent as I get older that we are retracing the steps of our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. We are the sum of the things we give away.
I have come up on another challenge. I can only imagine that I will overcome it at some point and be able to look back and not remember how it all happened because I forget at times. Minor details about the small steps that you take are hard for me to document or keep track of. Like a monkey swinging from tree to tree won't remember every leaf or branch that passes by. Quick thinking and reflexes or fall to your death. Pride goeth before destruction.
One thing I have learnt from the sea is that if you want lots of random smooth rocks you have no choice but to keep pounding the shoreline. Forever. In a constant rhythm. It helps that the ocean is gigantic and endless. The ocean is bigger than all your problems, and even the problems that you create yourself for other people.
I realize that you want to feel special like creating a world within a world which is unique and different from anything else that has ever existed for billions of years before now. Some things are bigger than the things you want. I have gone to great lengths to down play my specialties. My existence in this time and place, now, going forward is a cautious trod through a minefield of which I am very aware. I am aware of the things I do not like and the things that wake me up in a cold sweat at night. I bare them only for a time. There are things that I do not want to learn.
I try to not be too introspective in my writings lately but it is hard when I am not sure which direction my compass is heading. The future belongs to no man. I try. If you do not know me by now then you probably never will. I keep a log of the things I might forget because I surely will. It is not that I do not care to remember but mostly because there is so much to do, so much to learn and so little time is which to experience it all. I do not want to burden you with promises - a comfort.
I have been keeping a low profile since Cuba. What is life without experiences. Life is ever changing. People say that in the future these experiences might be useful but I am not so sure. I think people lie and steal. Most people do not know what they want until it is too late to change any of it.
I am behind on my personal projects. There is not enough time in the day and even less now that I am older. The older I get the more aware I am of my own mortality. Everyone has a story. Everything is in transition from one state to another. I may not be here tomorrow or next week. Arguing over small details is pointless. I need to learn to let go of the things that truly do not matter.
Things only come back into perspective when I go to my favorite place and watch people while I each lunch. Old people digging into their bags for expired credit cards. Basic school kids on a day field trip playing musical chairs in the food court. A Chinese family spoon feeding their baby. Old friends in conversation. Interns looking for the best place to sit where they can be most visible in case they spot someone they knew from high school. For some people this a stop on a long highway. For others this is their daily routine until they can escape. For me I am just capturing the moment.