The Return

So, just like the other 95 percent of lazy people that think "hey, writing a blog is a good idea!"  I wasn't able to commit because 1)What I was trying to do was like impossible, 2) I kind of realized after talking with somebody that it wasn't even a good idea, and 3) I'm bad at following through with things.  So, uh, yeah.

I've decided there aren't gonna be any real rules on this, now.  I'll just update it whenever.  That'll probably damn it to hell again, but in that case it was destined to be damned.

Since I'm kind of redefining how this thing works, I've decided to rename the blog.  Don't have any good ideas yet.  I almost fell into the incredibly cliched pothole that would be taking inspiration from Socrates' quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living."  Which, while being a good quote, HAS to be overused.

Don't expect this to be organized, either.  It's just a smattering of thoughts that I have.

-How do you define a couple?  Does it strictly mean two, or is it a small indeterminate number?  Is one more correct than the other?  I don't know.  You tell me.  I'm on the small, indeterminate side.

-The people I've heard speak in the last two weeks were Bill Ferris and Elie Wiesel, at least one of whom you obviously know.  Bill Ferris is a prominent folklore professor and basically pioneered field recordings, making an incredible contribution to our cultural history.  Anyway, among other things Wiesel and Ferris both focus on this fear of losing the lessons and values of history to our fast-paced, meaningless world.  They essentially see the same crisis that I'm having, except instead of my memories fading, they're more talking about memories and values and the human experience.  It's nice to see those kinds of parallels though.
  On a side note,  being a youth is becoming incredibly daunting.  It was very easy in high school to seem high-potential--oh, sure, he COULD do great things--but fulfilling that promise of potential is difficult.  Both of these highly respected people have placed the world's problems on our shoulders.  It's somewhat scary, but simultaneously empowering.  Let's go kick ass, our generation.

-Implicit in this argument for remembrance is this idea that our current lifestyle and many of its differences with the lifestyle of olde is somehow worse.  Like we're missing some key, intuitive piece of human experience that can't explicitly be mentioned, but its paucity can be felt.  I suppose I do feel that.  Is this a unique feeling, or have the keepers of the flame always said that of the newer lifestyle?
  It's similar, I think, to how a lot of the sentiment on campus regarding politics is that popular political debate is meaningless.  Their topics are all simply squabbling, and the real problems are ignored.  But what are those real problems?  I've been told them before, but they always seem to slip away from me.  What should our nation's priorities be?

Both of these questions have the vaguest possible answers.

Finally, I intend to chronicle how much money I spend on food this week.  I have unlimited and it constantly and increasingly feels like I'm wasting a ton of money.

I intend to keep examining different statistics of my lifestyle.  It's like Socrates said, "An unexamined life..."

DAMMIT I KNEW IT WOULD COME UP SOMEWHERE

Summer so Far:

Summer so far, that I can remember right now. I'm sure there's plenty I'm missing.

Books read: The Double Helix, Slaughterhouse Five, How Soccer Explains the World

Books I need to read: Picture of Dorian Grey, House of Leaves, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People (for my dad.)

Movies/Documentaries:

Gonzo, Serenity, Gangs of New York, the Goonies, others...

Movies/Documentaries I need to watch: Fear and Loathing, the Graduate, Memento, There Will Be Blood, Milk, basically any other movie that Kayla Atnip brought me.

Music: 8bit music, Wayne Brady's debut album, Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam (Yes, just now.), those two new Arcade Fire singles, the Avett Brothers, Bob Marley & the Wailers' Exodus, Aaron Copland's works, Bluegrass, Dubstep, Gang Starr, Rob Base's "It Takes Two," Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Memory Tapes, Noah and the Whale, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, others...

Stuff I am doing/have done: Make a potato gun, participate in the most epic poke war there ever was, go to the Y regularly, start brewing tea, stop smoking, hang out with a lot of cooooool cats, get shoulder surgery, start to recover, attend physical therapy with Micah, visit BRLS, visit Boone (which has the best weather ever in the summertime). Do a little bit of partying.

Stuff I have not done yet: Dance in the rain, fully recover from my shoulder surgery, hang out with some long lost friends (yes, that's you, reader.), win a certain poke war, organize some sort of ridiculous event, play more music, Urban Capture the Flag, document my life with pictures, be vegetarian for a week, go to a concert, go to a music festival (pitchfork? eh?), find my major, learn physics, go exploring, go hiking, roadtrip somewhere ridiculous (Harry Potter world?), homebrew something similar to the potato gun, make an 8bit masterpiece.

Suggestions? Please and thank you.

Summer so Far:

An Introduction: A Setting Out: A Prologue: A Promise. yeah.

OK, everybody. Here it is.

I know, I know. Blogs are vain. I'm a douche. Let's just get all that out of the way. This is kind of long. There's a too long, didn't read at the end.

Right now, I'm typing a blog post in my basement at 2 AM. I can't sleep. I'm typing with two hands and hoping the shoulder surgery I just had won't mind my using my right hand to type too much.

I'm also in college. A risin' sophomore at Chapel Thrill, UNC. It's a wonderful place; most of my friends that go there are now out all across the world, learning arabic or making water for starving african children or ending poverty and saving the world.

And then there's me. With the lame excuse of a shoulder surgery to back me up, I find myself with weeks upon weeks of free time. Trust me, it's incredibly relaxing. I'm incredibly relaxed. But it also threatens to be incredibly boring. There already seems to be a dearth of things to do. How is that possible?! I'm young! Life is for living!

But anyway, the biggest crisis I'm dealing with right now is that my summer has no meaning. This summer seems to be the first one that I've had complete control over, and I've given myself weeks upon weeks of nothing. These threaten to be weeks upon weeks of self indulgence, laziness, and if we're honest, probably marijuana.

My solution? Find a way, every day, to do one thing that has greater meaning, one way or another. I'm not a part of any organization that's pushing me to do things, I have no summer stipend, this is just me. I don't think this'll be close to easy. I'm not sure it'll even be possible. This blog is mainly a form of accountability for me. But what I do know is, it's gonna help me find out who I am, what I should do with my goddam life, and how to live purposefully. Thanks Thoreau (...right?).

So to start out, what the hell has meaning? Isn't relaxing meaningful? These are the questions I need to answer before I can even start, so I'm gonna lay out a few things that I feel have meaning. This is kind of all streamof thought so when I'm wrong AND ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU THINK I'VE LEFT SOMETHING OUT, tell me. Please.

1. Self-improvement is always a meaningful act (Mike Edwards). That is, purposefully improving literally any aspect of one's individual self, physical and mental. Learning a new skill? Putting yourself in a new situation? Improving your physical self? Check. Check. Check. This is the most straightforward category there is.

2. Art has the potential to be incredibly meaningful, and really contemplating a good piece of art can absolutely change the way one thinks and is therefore meaningful. I mostly mean this in regards to music and literature, but certainly many films are meaningful, but I don't mean Avatar. I mean... something else. ...wes anderson...?

3. Any creative act is a meaningful one. Mostly this can be related to art, but any creation, whether a trebuchet, photograph, song, or relationship works.

4. New Experiences can have serious impacts on our lives. I think putting ourselves into new experiences is crucial to development.

5. I can't deny the fact that surrounding oneself with nature is a meaningful act. I'm not quite sure I can explain why, but it does have an effect on me.

6. "Sometimes, some of the most meaningful acts are not done for yourself, but for others. Helping others can be the most self-improving and gratifying experience possible." --Caitlin Caudle. Couldn't have said it better meself. She's got one of these too, somewhere.

That's all. For now, I guess. Let me know what I've missed or that I'm going about this all wrong.

I'm not really sure the exact format of the blog yet. I think I'm going to write about a new thing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then say what I did along with those posts. That's still up for grabs. I don't know if the meaningful music and books and films will be posts to themselves, or just something I mention.

I think it'd be REALLY AWESOME if some other people wanted to write a post about something meaningful they've done. I want to be able to look back on this and see all sorts of things I can do to really improve myself.

TL;DR Hello, I'm going to be trying to do something meaningful every day, I think self improvement, art, creativity, new experiences and nature are meaningful, I'm not sure what the format is, tell me where I fucked up.

Thanks.