A state of mind I once knew — on immortality

The word “grave” tells you pretty much all you need to know. The “gr” at the beginning forces your voice to drop lower and imply seriousness. The “rave” calls forth images of ravens, dark birds with darker symbolism and of course the idea of something you can't control, a la the raven's sinister flight.

We can't even fly. We lie. In graves and to faces. The human fault, the invention of lying, that divides us as a people and serves to us our greatest wrongs; the prevention of dying, making us seek false hope and tightening our grasp on a reality that requires letting go.

Yet within this whirlwind world, we lose touch with those that we swear were just by our side. We wake up and have pushed away our tightest companions, we stop dazing and realize the hand we're holding is cold and the reason is that the fire went out.

And we can't even appreciate the things that we're given. Flying past us like billions of grains of sand, without appreciation, go faces, phenomenons, scapes and skylines. We make marvels that rival wonders we can't fathom, and achieve feats of excellence normally reserved for God himself.

But isn't it God, after all? Can't it be? A series of events set in motion, a provider of chance, setting boundaries — is what I'm thinking. Not like some President, making executive decisions based on the will of his people. No, no. Maybe some experimental expedition into interaction (as you may know, this God would have very little if not for creation) of different life forms.

Ha, God: the original scientist.

There is no awakening. There is no enlightening. There is no vision to miss out on. The vision is what you perceive before you die. That's all the epiphany you have time for. If you, friend, find what it is we are all supposed to be looking for, consider that you're on your own, and that I am looking for something entirely different.

Be tolerant. Be accepting. Be good. Be within bounds. Be true to your urges and respect your inhibitions. Fight for nothing. Work for everything. Don't take; acquire. Don't destroy; build. Don't take; reallocate. The world hums along a line and you buzz all about it. But you don't dare cut it. For if you cut it,

--Eliot Sill

Conor - Obsession

I am an extremely ritualistic, obsessive person. I'm cool with this, too. It gives my life order. Brings me back from the edge of chaos. 

Everyone has their default activity. In the Big Lebowski, when he's not lamenting the loss of his rug or being tortured in the coolest way possible, the Dude and his friends are bowling. That's just what they do. They're bowlers. 

What am I? Well I have many obsessions. Being a bowler makes you sound cool and focused. I don't want any of the titles that my obsessions would grant me. Most of them are really specific and geeky. Most of them I share with a group of friends or at least one individual, but some of them are personal, individual things. 

Like my BEN FOLDS obsession. Sure, I got this from my brother and sister, and my friend Griffin holds Folds* to a similar level of worship and admiration, but I keep this to myself as much as possible. I'm embarrassed, really. Normally I'm a pretty objective person, but, uh, not with this guy. Even though some part of my brain is horribly aware that he makes terrible, annoying music sometimes, I will allow none of your sass. Every year or so I'll go through a big Ben Folds phase and break out all of his piano books that I own (every single one) and spend weeks biting my tongue, fighting the urge to bring his music up in conversation. Every now and again this terrible thought emerges from some deep crevice in my consciousness and I think: What will I do if Ben Folds sucks? What will I do if one day I just take a good, hard look at the music I grew up on and based an extremely large part of my musical taste on and realize he's just not all that good? After some soul searching I decided that I will never actually have to face this crisis, as I am extremely good at lying to myself.

*hahahahahahaaaaahahaha

FINAL FANTASY. Yeah yeah yeah, I've talked about this enough. One of the thing that's so fun about my Final Fantasy problem is that I have several other friends who have been tainted with similar levels of Final Fantasy obsession and geekdom. It gives us something to talk about. It gives us something to do every night there aren't other pesky plans getting in the way.

TV SHOWS. I can hardly claim this to be anywhere near unique, but rolling through a season of a TV show I just got into in a matter of a few days is oddly rewarding. What's that? I feel sick and I'm staying home from school today, oh sure why shouldn't I watch Season 1 of 30 Rock. I watch all of Arrested Development every other year, usually by introducing it to a friend who has yet to be enlightened and then using them as a reason to watch the series from start to finish. I just started watching the Wire and I can't stop thinking about it. Wednesday Eliot needs to get his shit together and clear up his nights so we can finish season 1 with his older brother.

DINOSAUR T-SHIRTS. Why should I wear other things when I have theeeeeese

MINI-GOLF falls into the same category as RAQUETBALL, FOOSBALL, VARIOUS DRINKING GAMES, MARIO PARTY 2 and BOUNCY INFLATABLE OBSTACLE COURSES LIKE YOU SEE AT AFTER-PROMS, These can all be  accredited to the fact that I am a terribly, terribly competitive person. The O'Brien side of my family blames that on the Barnes side of my family. When asked if they are the competitive douches they are accused of being, the Barnes side of my family shrugged and kept on winning. 

That's what's up with me. I'm sure none of this is terribly new information to anyone reading this, but that's just what I was thinking about tonight. I also wanted to use this blog post as somewhat of an EXPERIMENT. In an effort to make this more of a discussion than a one shot statement to no one, I want to end with a question. Post comments about your obsessions. Write about something that you're super into, something interesting, unique, or something I/the average reader wouldn't know about you. This post will look VERY SAD if no one writes back, so have at, people. Please participate. This could be fun.