the crickets and breeze carry me away... my thoughts slow and i gradually fall to sleep...

today proved the reason that i made sure to get a west-facing window in my dorm.


...today and the beautiful, vivid air coming from my window proves how being a relatively shy introvert makes you whistfully feel the breeze from outside and think how pathetic it is that you don't wish to go for a walk on your own and at the same time don't really know anyone to ask to go for a walk with.
only person i asked didn't feel like it.


...and the breeze is taunting me.


haha, much like the clouds when they try to act more alive than i...


mmm, when will i ditch the whole dorm room idea and pitch a tent outside?
or simply bring my sleeping bag and lay out all night in the fresh air...


i think i need a campfire...
i need sitting outside, bare feet, clear skies...


i need camp already, great scot...


i need to live somewhere i can have 'camp' all the time...


and far enough away from people that i don't have to be shy about people seeing me in the 'introvert corner' nature provides. 


*sigh*


it's amazing how you can find yourself synonymous with what surrounds you...
you don't really remember how much you love it until you experience it again...
and then you would give anything to be outside with it...
haha, like the weekends last summer when i cleaned all the cars in our driveway just so i could be outside...
but the cool air seems to have more life in it...
suppose it's fresh and new, beautiful and breezy...


*sigh*
i do feel that You had all of that in mind when you created me, Lord...


haha, indeed.


but how is it that i can be so awkward when trying to be myself with others around...
they're different people.
the same but different aspects, really.
i suppose that's true for everyone.


however while i'm sitting in my dorm by myself, when i'm left to my own thoughts eating alone at lunch, i can be myself...


You know what You're doing when you place people in this world.


haha, I've said before that i don't say anything new, remember?


i wonder if other people know Your sarcastic humor.


You know Lord, i often find it difficult to explain myself to people...
'a poet can withstand anything except a misprint'
indeed...
i mean, when i say 'i haven't really ever gotten anything out of chapel...' or 'i don't really feel worshipful with worship music...' or 'i don't like K-LOVE'
...kind of hard to explain myself without me sounding like a hard-shelled unfeeling person.
...i am hard-shelled...
but i suppose the inside cannot learn to exist on the outside.


does it fear a 'misprint' or is it just inertia?
regardless i suppose i should just let life and the people i meet extract or send into further seclusion certain aspects of myself and not question or think about it at all.


...yeah, You're laughing now, aren't You?


haha, i know that You instilled in me the need to understand everything around me...
an unquenchable curiosity that wished to comprehend even the smallest of matters...


it's not analyzing to death.


it's curiosity.


logic puzzles, with the grids, now those i analyze to death and love every minute of it!\\


haha, Lord, small wonder i enjoy being by myself so often...
You keep good company.
kind of hard for anyone to compare with You for friendship...
...however there isn't anyone that cares to try anyway.


i suppose i'm just born for 'life on the edge'


...of humanity.


i'm a good person to talk to if i'm around, but not someone people seek out to talk to.


...but nature always seeks me out...


it's impossible for it not to.

Hi. my name is lindsay... and i suffer from humanity.

random:


*note*
don't read unless you want blunt honesty and to start thinking thoughts you shouldn't.
yeah you.
i have to get it out of my system.


it's ridiculous how much thought there is in everything...
different aspects that push and pull; humanity and thoughts that are part of our selfish core being fought by the good that we also are; that i grew into from having God be my constant company...
but clairty of soul means you see the negative things that you musn't give a voice in your life to.
there's the side that wants to say 'i feel sorry for her dating an arrogant jerk that thinks he knows best, is oxymoronic and does what he condemns others for doing and...'
etc.
that's not right.
at all.
even if i feel he is that it musn't be part of anything, especially how i act.
there's the part of me that compares myself and thinks 'oh, well i am prettier.' 'i do look better' 'i'm more athletic' 'i bet i think more deeply.'
...that's just pathetic.
makes me slightly nauseous to think i'm capable of such thought...
i don't compare myself to others in such a way; i never have.
why now?
i would say that it's jealousy in most cases that drives it; but it that simply isn't true at all in this case.
i think it's because of how basically said 'you're not good enough' i have to make myself feel better by saying i'm better than her.


i despise human nature sometimes.


the friction between human nature and the person You want me, and everyone else, to be is part of life...
i suppose the sandpaper smooths it all over and gets rid of the rough edges.


then there's my mind trying to criticize him.
posture. looks. actions.
i am not a life critic, no one is save You, Lord, and even then you see beyond.
we see the result and i, being who i am, try to assess the result to come to a better understanding of it all.


human nature is a terrible, binding thing...


there are good elements but life is a push and pull battle for what will win out in your life...
often, as a wall-flower, i had the opportunity to observe the many aspects of human nature simply because no one asked me to take part in humanity.
i sat on the edge.
and watched.


it's fascinating to observe such things...
through observing it outwardly you learn to observe it inwardly.
your mind is not one idea; it's hundreds of perspectives clashing together, thoughts that shouldn't be considered trying to win out over...
You know Lord, i realize that human nature is a part of everyone.
but it feels as if i'm so disassociated with it that it's feasible for me not to be a part of it.
i grew up with You Lord, and i'm not certain what that would mean for the human core that i have...
...other than i'm different...
but it's crazy...
especially how i can sit back and recognize all of these thoughts playing out...
while the negativity and pathetic thoughts are there...
they're not a part of me.
human nature is not a part of me?
i wish i knew how to say that...


but it seems true.


i recognize that humans are not inherently bad...
but they are also not inherently good.
there is poison mixed into our blood that is difficult to recognize if you don't look deep enough...
or don't understand enough...
i acknowledge that children, when young, can't comprehend a lie at first...
i wonder if a child surrounded by pure good would discover anything evil. i.e. a lie.
i would bet so.
Cain did.
Adam did.
there's poison in choice, and we have to decipher the good and the bad...


i suppose we're not good or bad, we have just simply been given the power to govern ourselves.


that's an interesting poison that seeps in and taints our very nature...
is it really power that is the root of all evil?
choice?
the power to make choice?
it all bleeds together...


i realize i am not saying anything new or profound.
just sorting through old thoughts and trying to think of why such thoughts dare invade my mind...
glimpses of a form of hatred that is not just,
judging in order to make myself feel better,
triumphant thoughts of me being 'right all along,'
burning regret that channels apathy in a degrading manner.


i realize that i'm human...


but i wish i didn't have to be.


i suppose humanity is distasteful to me.
...in myself.


how is it that it is understandable in others?


random: it occurs to me that i never go into detail about the positive force trying to beat out the negatives...
i suppose for me it is primarily the pull that 'this isn't right...'

random ramblings on insufficient knowledge and the inability to produce meaningful thought over the sound of her body screaming for sleep. ....and the need for more sushi..

out of boredom i searched the internet and took various personality type tests, some for Type A/B and some that are closely associated with the Myers-Briggs model.

i find it hilarious that no matter what i do i cannot escape being...

well, everthing.

i'm in the middle for Type A/B and in the another test the graph shows i'm very much introverted, yes to the iNtuitive, no preference for F or T and kind of P over F.

...

i could guess that much, but to see it reaffirmed in a graph and results that flat out give me two personality types is kind of funny... or it gave me four rather, including TP and FJ.

...i suppose it would make sense that those would be included in my personality types, but saying that one has four personality types just sounds odd.

unless you're me.

being everything is crazy.

--hours and hours later-

haha! even the test on the personality forum/website i just joined (went to the cafe out of boredom... and curiosity.) has me as most likely INFP or an INTJ as a second possibility...

duct tape and inspiration

*random
i wonder if mom knows how much she hurts dad.
last weekend...
it was ridiculous.
but i see where i get the gene for brushing off such encounters.
...hopefully i never marry into a situation where i have to use it.
then again, i think when it comes to peers i can defend myself better.
i was talking to my friend from san fran and she's going through the menopause-monster-mom phase now, my family is done with that thankfully. 
she recognized that it's hard because...
what are you going to do, rebuke your parents?
if someone, anyone, else treated you like that you'd defend yourself.


...unless you're me, and i'm odd. i do but i'm also hard on myself...
i suppose cruelness and things that make no form of sense i call out, but downing my singing, acting, anything...
i may agree.


there's one thing about 'acting' in college...
first semester last year the director supported me and loved me.
second semester not so much.
i don't have my high school drama teacher and friend that's now in an ADA acting school to cheer me on, give me pointers, and see potential in me.
no one to egg me on.
ah well.


you know when actors, famous athletes, artists, etc...
when they say 'I'd just like to thank my 4th grade teacher' or 'if it hadn't been for my mentor in college...'
i see quite clearly how necessary such people are.
if you took what they said and they're mentorship...
i'd be almost done with a rigorous film/design school by now.
or i'd be majoring in theater right now.
or i'd be majoring in voice performance. (the entire musical cast my senior year, leads included, told me to follow that route...)
or i'd be modeling like my art teacher thought.
or i'd be a professional hammered dulcimer player, one famous dulcimer artist at a workshop thought i should...
or i'd be a scientist like all of those people at science camp, including my grade school principal that's the head of the board for that program, thought.
or i'd be a historian like many teachers past thought.


...but i've never had a constant mentor or supporter.
and i'd be happy doing any of those things.
i'm running out of time for a concrete decision, and is design where i want to end up?
i'm thinking of it as 'be stuck in' because what i graduate with is it, i can't afford anymore.


...


with that in mind maybe i should add a music major.


we'll see how choir goes.


i... just don't know.


i suppose shocking the choir director and him saying i've made fantastic progress isn't enough.
or shocking the head of the fine arts department to tears.


but am i really that or any good?


i suppose in the end for me it depends on what mentor wins out.
what person drives me to become more.
it's pathetic that i say that instead of grasping one possibility on my own.
i suppose i'm too 'realistic'


my design prof believes in my design.


...but while i eat, sleep, and breathe design...


i don't make designs or art all the time. 
it's not all i am...
as in my friends in the department (and the field) that are wonderful at it create all the time.
i...
don't.


at anyrate...
i see where mentors help, i'd been thinking of that with acting... 
seeing the difference.
i think having a solid, honest mentor also keeps you real.
except without one, in my case, i meet reality hard and only see fault.
you have to believe in yourself, but not be arrogant about it...
i've met people who are good...
but the problem is they know it.
and their character turns it into arrogance.


however as humans we all have that quality...
how do we ensure it doesn't come out?


it reminds me of what i thought when i was in the holocaust museum in Berlin...
both the murderer and the victim were humans.
same qualities.
what went wrong?
or like 'the dark knight'
same premise.
good...
but he turned.
what...?


anyhow, i went from arrogance to more extremes...
but it's the same idea.


great scot, it's late and i have to help tow a truck on the morrow...




listening to the lord of the rings sound track... 
calming.


*sigh*


Lord, you created me...


so differently...


it's odd to feel at home in a melody.


you float away with it and are left not feeling like you're home.
as if you're called to do something more...
but what?

fading daylight at the end of the quest...

random:
a book i'm reading about wisdom points out that "like many big ideas, it's also nettled with contradictions. Wisdom is based upon knowledge, but part of the physics of wisdom is shaped by uncertainty...
These inherent contradictions do not fatally vex a potential definition of wisdom; rather they are embedded in it. One of the best ways to think about wisdom, in fact, is to try to identify those rare individuals who manage to reconcile these contradictions and still embody wisdom. These are (or once were) living, breathing, and, because they are human, imperfect definitions of wisdom, but they are also less abstract, more like wisdom in the flesh."


'inherent contradictions'
haha, as many 'big ideas' do it does indeed involve contradictions.
not that i truly know what wisdom is.
at least i'm not the only paradox in the universe; however that i knew all along.
perhaps the beginning of wisdom is in knowing that we will never have a perfect definition and it we did find it someone would probably have swept it under a rug.


"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
-Winston Churchill


indeed.
actually this book also briefly discusses how wisdom is persecuted...
describing how many of the past people we now consider to have been 'wise' were sent to their death in one way or another and that the very person that came up with the word 'philosophy' was burned out of his home!
modern people we as a society think are wise?
...talk show hosts and famous individuals.
however it does thankfully note that there are plenty of wise unknowns.


random:
in lieu of my 'seeking' and such recycled speech from the prior two posts, a random quote from Plutarch points out that "We ought to seek out virtue not merely to contemplate it, but to derive benefit from doing so."


wait what, so you mean we should learn from the continual journey of seeking out virtue and truth instead of sitting around expecting it to come?!?
where have i heard that before...


as i have pointed out previously, intoxicating thoughts are but mistresses passed down through generations... embracing many throughout the years and on occasion making them think they're the only one.


i think the difficult part is starting to seek.
because for me unless i'm caught in an apathetic spell i'm always seeking...
not directly, but i find that my manner of living kicks up rocks and examines what's under them...
the more i think about it the more i consider 'how is it sought without simply sitting and contemplating it?'
i think you have to draw from life to learn anything.
and believe this quite is not downing contemplating, but rather saying contemplation alone is nothing.
and that i believe is true.




random:
'what is wisdom?'
'what is truth?'


perhaps wisdom is recognizing truth and applying it.


...but what is that?


hmm.


random:
i feel like jogging about...
four miles.
probably only two since i'm out of shape.


random:
i have odd things for a 19 year old.
stored at my grandparents house, yet mine.
a 1903 upright piano that's been in the family for years.
platinum-edged bavarian china that i can't wait to have a house to display in.
an antique hall tree/mirror.
and a large marble collection.


...i like antiques, what can i say?
and i know grandma really wants me to take my piano...
but i want it there where it belongs.


i suppose i'm coming to terms with the degrading nature of life.
how i love the sunsets yet do not think of the full implication of the metaphor in relation to life...
you work to accomplish and then it all fades away...
but by the end those things aren't so important any longer.
i'm not pulling a 'life is working to get stuff then you lose it' argument but rather a 'we built this house. we raised two kids in it. we've loved four grand kids in it.  we can't live in it anymore.' perspective.
or in the case of my friends at church, 'I've worked this land, i've watched sunsets from this porch... i can't maintain it any longer' perspective.
the thought that the life you love...
you just can't do.
the day your hand is too shaky to play the bass.
the day your arthritis is too bad to hold your pen.
the day your voice is too frail to sing.
the day you can't get out of bed on your own.


I suppose this is the importance of living life without such things.
you have to live without the outdoors, the arts, the active lifestyle...
you have to be yourself without it.
yes it can form you, yes you need it, but can you survive without it?


this is also why it's important to 'know' who you are before you ever consider a relationship, if you're not happy on your own don't make someone else make you happy, your sole source of life should not be a person.


same principles in my mind.


yet to tie it all in...


you can still kick up those rocks as you go down the path...
no matter who or what you become.


hmm...

recycled thoughts and copied lyrics. (if i reduced the font size the three R's would be covered)

"I am the sea on a moonless night
Calling falling, slipping tides
I am the leaky, dripping pipes
The endless, aching drops of lights

I am the raindrop falling down
Always longing for the deeper ground
I am the broken, breaking seas
Even my blood finds ways to bleed

Even the rivers ways to run
Even the rain to reach the sun
Even my thirsty streams
Even in my dreams

I am restless"

i tip my hat to you once again Mr. Foreman.

and i find it intriguing that you found a like spirit in the falling raindrops...

suppose i'm not the only one that looks at things through that angle.

"Until the sea of glass we meet
At last completed and complete
Where tide and tear and pain subside
And laughter drinks them dry

I’ll be waiting
Anticipating
All that I aim for
What I was made for

With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
I’m looking for you"

it seems to me that Jon doesn't think he is who he is meant to be yet...
he is still waiting for who he is and what he was meant for.
he's an accomplished musician and a fantastic writer.
yet he's still searching, still falling down in rivers towards the sea.

...in my opinion, if you reach a plateau and stop searching and falling...
then you've stopped living.

in life there is no 'arrival' to a place where you can sit back and relax.

if that is what life is then i wish to have no part in it.

instead i'll arrive at new conclusions that i find when looking at the raindrops on the glass in my window, when i'm pained beyond belief, when i'm alone in my room laughing with God, when i look in the mirror and see scars in my eyes...
all of this, to me, is part of living.

always searching, always questioning...

forever restless indeed...

...who was it now that said i don't know the meaning of life?

i don't care if my meaning doesn't line up with others.
life to me is to look at a sunset and feel it deeply, to tremble with joy and the stars in the sky, to feel God laughing at you, to find personal resonance in a storm, to look away from the mirror because your eyes carry too much hurt, to learn from it all and come away determined with a glint in your eye and a half-smile at God's antics as you always did.

it just digs life deeper.

"I am the raindrop falling downAlways longing for the deeper ground
I am the broken, breaking seas
Even my blood finds ways to bleed"




will i ever find that deeper ground?
or am i destined to always search to no avail?
only finding deeper ground when my blood bleeds through the ground?
then again, that's how i got this 'deep' in the first place...
kind of.
as one of my favorite people put, 'well Lindsay has always been sort of an old soul...'




i truly don't perceive myself as really 'deep.'
and i cringe to think people may think i'm just trying to sound profound as i can't stand when people try purposely to act that way...
i just have a different perspective.


then again how one perceives them self is not an opinion to be fully trusted; it at least requires a grain of salt.
rock salt, that is.

a whisp of a garden and finding kindred spirits in inanimate objects...

best part of the day:


last year dad killed off my favorite ornamental grass... there was a very nice corner full of it.
today i went so stir crazy i threw on a tank-top and went outside to weed the rocky area that used to be where the flower-pots were (my mom liked it best with rocks and flower-pots on top... i suppose it was easier to weed...)
when i got to that corner i found a tuft of that grass...
with a half-smile i found a spade and dug it up, transplanting it to a medium-sized pot.


i swear within the hour it got greener...


needless to say, made me happy indeed.

indirect words from an old friend

"if you could think the way i think... you'd probably be quiet too."

my mouth can't even hold half a graham cracker...

i fail to see how my size 10.5 feet fit in there.

wishin' I was knee deep in the water somewhere...

77 degrees, clear sky, and soft green grass that feels good under your toes.
where's a porch swing and a glass of strawberry lemonade when you need it...


last summer got me interested in country music again.
this summer, especially that last night sitting around on the patio of my favorite people's house while some of them kicked back a few beers, the rain showers passed and the old stereo was set to fast paced country...


i think this past week with me going around dressed right down to the polished silver belt buckle talking in a 'country' accent for my part in vacation Bible school got to my head.
okay, it started before then.
ah, camp...


not that i came here to ramble about how i'm finally breaking back into the music i cut my teeth on in the first place (and quite frankly there are a lot of good musicians in country... more musical than a lot of popular styles...)
but in all reality.


i like small town.


i like wide open spaces.


where in the world will music or graphic design take me...


i could live in kansas my whole life and i couldn't think of a better place.
as much as i'd like whatever kids i may have if i ever get married to go to hockey practice at some ice complex or play in a youth orchestra from the age of 6, i'd much rather send them out back to explore the woods, pull them around a sharp turn in a wagon so they fall out, maintain a fort like my friends and i used to, have them practice roping a plastic steerhead stuck on the end of a bale of hay or even better let them learn to saddle up a horse and watch them struggle to get a youth sized saddle on a mere 14 hh horse.


in Germany the small town feel was there, little villages that welcomed you and gasthauses that loved you the minute you laughed with the owner about something.


but small-town country dreams are just that, a dream.
yes i'm in small town now, but i will never be able to walk out and buy a 3,000 sq. foot house with a small stable and a hundred or so acres.
and town...
you don't buy into small town, money doens't buy one of my favorite old men antagonizing me and shaking his oxygen tank at me (haha!) it doesn't buy meeting the youngest survivor of the U.S.S. Arizona and listening to him tell his stories and showing you his room jam-packed with WWII memorabilia, it doesn't buy the mayor knowing who you are and commenting on your work in the local school and community theater scene while you're discussing possibly building a website for said town...


i hope i can find small town...
then again, in all reality you can bring small-town with you if the people are right.
if you're right.


whenever i go someplace and see the old farmers sitting around at 8am for breakfast at a little cafe...
i smile, and i feel sad...
because will that generation always be here?
or has the tip your hat generation given way to the getting married ten times and go to the lake and be stupid drunks and ask to play volleyball with teenage girls and comment on one of their bikinis generation?
not that my friends and i have experience the latter option in the past month or so...
okay, so it was a month and a half ago.
why did she say yes, most awkward volleyball game ever...


i suppose i'm saying that i'm daydreaming about goals that can't be grasped as i haven't the money and times are changing...


i never reach what i dream, but then again few people do...
even though i dream simple...
but one say i will at least be able to lay in the grass and gaze at the stars...
ha, even if i don't find a life that includes a reason to put on jeans and boots...


Lord, i'd be content if i lived on my own somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
i'm quite certain that's not your plan for me, but i know whatever i dream You dream better.


...this post made no sense.


...but it does.


...but it doesn't.


it doesn't make the sense i see in it.


...and that makes perfect sense to me.

dark clouds mean rain. rain means life.

i was just laying on my bed and looked at my computer...

my desktop background caught my eye...
especially since i was laying as i do when i'm looking at the grass and the land around me... seeing that at the exact angle i see the world...
may i remember Germany like that.


may i always look at life through the shoots of grass while laying in a field watching the sun go down...
may the dark silhouettes on the landscape always look beautiful...
and may the rain always feel like life...
even if the storm rages.




...and may the metaphors always be felt and realized without analyzing...
...especially the unintentional ones.

Parallel connections and mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra...

you know you are heavily tied to the outdoors when you simply go outside in the rain for five minutes then come back in, throw all the doors and windows open for a few hours, hook up your ipod to your record player and organize the bathroom/finish unpacking your camp trunk and do three loads of laundry while listening to jazz/swing music.


mmm, rain...


always feels wonderful, and the green everywhere makes up for the parched land and hat weather that has been endured...


speaking of, i'm not really certain why i had that word put on my custom converse...
i suppose it's my 'glorious underrated mantra' or however the quite goes.


hmm.
if ever there was a 'mantra' in my life i think that would be it...


i haven't any real defining phrase however...
then again, to find a definition for me would be quite ridiculous.
yesterday i was talking to someone on facebook, it came up that 'oh, so you're random?'
i suppose, but really it's hard to say...
''oh, so you're different each day?'
umm...


and i need to sift through this blog and organize the real posts and the 'this is what i'm feeling today' talking to myself posts. (EDIT-hey, that's what i'm doing now!)


ha, and now Alabama comes up on itunes...


...now Jack Johnson...


i think it's remarkable how sounds emulate feelings, mellowness, excitement, anger... it's sound.
sound, feelings.
vibrations being picked up by our ears.
and affecting how we feel.


feelings.


feelings are...
a theory in all reality.
then brain controls it and i find it fascinating how biological it all is.
and yet at the same time it's not!
then again, vibrations affecting the brain makes a biological arguement seem flawless.
quite remarkable and mind boggling to think of a balance.
fully psychological or fully biological wouldn't be as hard to comprehend...


what is it about balance that's so difficult?


it's difficult whether you're balancing a two-by-four on a triangle, balancing your checkbook, or compromising and trying to find a balance of ideas while writing a bill in congress.
odd how one phrase seems to span so much...
and i had written the title to this post before i went on an odd sound/feeling/mind/balance tangent.


...oddly enough i visualize things without really meaning to.
this visualization was checkbooks, bills, psychology, and a triangle were all parallel lines somehow...
then a big dusty plank drops on one end and tips over, therefore making the plank reading 'balance' a perpendicular bisector of the lines...


...yes, i visualize things like this often...
not always with a large dusty plank, yet you get the picture.


other random thought i had a few weeks ago:
if grass had tubers in the roots, like an asparagus fern, then the grass would last longer because it would retain the water!
on the other hand, many an asparagus fern that i have grown turned yellow and died from the ground being too moist...
then again, those were poorly irrigated pots so the excessive rain did not help...
yet it would help immensely if grass had them;
that being said grass shoots are small...
i wonder if it's possible to engineer small tuber on grass...
if they can make purple potatoes why not tuber-ridden grass?
then again, what would that do for the ground...
if the grass absorbs more water...


hmm...


i'm not a scientist, so i suppose i should leave such thoughts alone.


...never!


-----


what today feels like...


i've heard it be described as 'depressing'
...not sure why...
i just settle in and 'i can see the stars from way down here...'
always moving, always improving...
endure.