The Commitment-phobe's Dilemma

One word: "commitment-phobe." If you don't know what I'm talking about, Urbandictionary provides an artful definition that may prove helpful.

Commitment-phobia is a thing that plagues my generation, and is embodied in numerous forms from relationships to casual arrangements in which people are "committed" to something, but only until something better comes along. Seeing it positively, I call commitment-phobia, "being flexible." My parents frustratingly call it "rude" and "inconsiderate."

Either way, I'm sure this not-so-rare disorder probably includes you.

And it definitely means me.

Exhibit A - the stereotypical model  

Although have no fear! This will not be a post about romantic endeavors gone awry (despite the abundance of material), nor will it be one complaining about people's inability to live up to their word. These would all be much too serious topics that would take away from the cheeky demeanor that has engulfed me at the moment.

Rather, this is a post about stickers - the bane of a slightly OCD, commitment-phobic college student, dealing with the closest epitome to a vow that I can comprehend at this stage in life.

This reflection stems from the fact that I got my new beautiful blue Nalgene in the mail today and have been hoarding stickers to plaster all over it. I've thought out the design...but therein lies the problem - I have to actually stick the stickers on the waterbottle.  Cue internal chaos:

"Nooooooooooooooo!!!! WHAT IF I MESS IT UP?! The bottle and the stickers will be ruined FOREVER! ahhhhhh!"

Exhibit B: the standard model

Overlooking my melodramatic enactments, here's the funny thing - I was describing this dilemma to my friend Matt, who I convinced to sit down and chat with me over a vanilla latte, and over the course of the three minute story-telling, numerous different people around us all jerked their heads over attentively, or began nodding somberly to themselves. I even got a few "OMGS TOTALLY!" from the random girl sitting next to us who felt so moved by my story that she joined the discussion.


Conclusion?

Stickers are a perfect metaphor for the many decisions we make in life. You can plan things out as much as you want, or you can make things up as you go. But one thing is for certain: you have to eventually peel the backs off the stickers in order to use them - an act that is apparently incredibly traumatic for my commitment-phobic generation.

And the question I always fall back on every time I learn something new about humanity, specifically Americans: We let these indecisive people (ourselves) vote?? All those "undecideds" unable to make a decision between the lesser of two evils until the last minute determine the fate of our country?

No wonder the world is going to hell in a hand-basket - we're too paralyzed by the potential that we might make the wrong decision or *gasp* FAIL that we don't take any action at all. We freeze right as we're about to stick the sticker, check the box, or take the first pencil stroke on a blank canvas.

It's that "this is it," moment that we should live for, take pride in, and feel good about. Whatever happens, that decision was ultimately yours, and as such have proven your ability to think and act not only for yourself, but acknowledge your impact on others.

Reclaim your word. Make it powerful. Make it decisive. Make it considerate. Make it true.

Phew! Time for me to fend off my own fears and plaster my waterbottle or risk looking like a hypocrit - the worst possible fate.  Me: 1           Commitment-phobe me: 0

Glad I got that over with ;)

Crazy is as crazy does

I'm limiting myself to just a short entry tonight. This will not be one of my waxing (or waning, if you tend toward the negative side of things in life) ramblings. I just know that I won't be able to sleep right away because of something I've just experienced. So what do I do? I write about it of course!

Anyways.

So I just finished watching Running the Sahara and it was AMAZING. Although the thought may have never crossed your mind, it is fascinating to watch 102 minutes of three male runners sweating, foot-abscess popping, and carbo-loading, mixed in of course with some stunning National Geographic filmography that almost makes running across the hottest, and third largest desert in the world look fun. FUN.

The point being is that these guys went through hell and back, making the 4,300-mile shuffle over the course of 110 days and some of the harshest conditions that make the Sahara's indestructible camels even cringe. Sand dunes that can reach almost 600 feet high. Duststorms that suffocate you, sending sand into your eyes, throat and lungs. And of course, a shortage of the most crucial element to human survival - water.

And the question remains: Why did they do it??

The movie trailer overs a sneak peak into the answers of the runners themselves, but I (surprise!) have my own ideas on the matter. 

This movie has me irked. Mostly I'm annoyed because I want to understand why things like this seem so impossible, why I don't even dream about doing crazy stuff like this at all.  Where's my imagination? Have I settled for the ordinary? The acceptable? The do-able? Where's the fun in that? Sure, I don't need to go out and run the Sahara desert, but c'mon let's face it, why don't more people tell me how freaking average I am?? No, seriously! We let ourselves slide on so much - take the easy ways out - let ourselves get distracted from going the extra miles. "I don't have time. I don't have money. I want to settle down..." blah, blah, blah.  Excuses, excuses.

When you get right down to it, excuses like that are sooooo boring!! When we say these things, what we're really saying is that we're not going to make the success of our dreams a priority. It's like we, as human beings, are collectively afraid (or lazy) of striving to fulfill our full potential. 

Now to be fair, if everyone was as crazy as these three guys, pursuing the impossible, well then where would our world be? Honestly, it's hard to imagine. It'd be so awesome, and probably incredibly chaotic... visions of incredibly enthusiastic goal-oriented creatures, devoiding the world of its stability

But anyways, I guess in all seriousness, it's astonishing to think of what we could achieve if we could overcome our huge mental blocks that prevent our bodies from making the impossible, possible on a regular basis. In the words of Thomas Edison, "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would astound ourselves."

I believe that any person should be able to change their lives any day of the year. You don't need a holiday, or an excuse to mix things up. Just do it. I know I will be re-evaluating my priorities and learning how to become most efficient and effective, especially having watched this movie in which three runners put in the miles ultimately to understand themselves and their potential for greatness.

Time to hit the trail, and if it makes me crazy so be it, but it'll be helluva lot more interesting than sitting around waiting for life to happen around me. NO EXCUSES.

"Love is" [a poem]

Here's a short poem I wrote for a Creative Writing class I took last semester...I'm pulling it out of the archives in service to Valentine's Day - a day in which we all need to remember the multitude of forms love takes. 


Love is.

Has your mother ever stroked

Her hands through your hair, and then begins to braid

Making long sweeps of those long beautiful fingers

That at dusk otherwise play piano in the laundry room?

“I don’t know what makes my life worthy,” looking down, embarrassed

To which she answers with a smile:

Listen to your heart.

Has your father ever played

A week-long game of chess with you, the board set up in the kitchen

With queens, knights, and pawns patiently waiting for hasty fingers

That pause only long enough to help pieces avoid capture?

“I don’t know what I want,” you sigh dramatically

To which he answers with a swift checkmate and a wink:

Use your brain.

Has your best friend ever taken

Your hand in the dark, while you whisper

Confessions that are better heard by her

Than by any godly entity?

“I don’t know who I am,” you say, trembling

To which she answers with a squeeze of her hand:

But I do.

Has your lover ever asked

To be an admirer of both your body and spirit,

Of your laugh that is too loud, and your tongue that is too sharp

Yet does not overlook such things but rather finds beauty in them?

“I don’t know how to trust,” you mumble defensively

To which they answer with a kiss on your brow:

And then steps back without a word.

Have you ever wondered

About the power within yourself to embrace

Not a thing with feathers, but rather the breeze that lifts the wing,

Of hope and of faith in yourself and others?

"I must love the world anyways!" you shriek happily to the heavens,

To which the universe chuckles, casting new dreams into the sky:

And you dance, liberated.

Because love, despite everything, remains.

Questioning the "Obvious"

I remember being a young kid, looking up at everything in the world. I remember summer days riding home in my dad's orange '67 volkswagon bus, the engine putting along, and of course, the radio blasting - usually NPRs hourly news cycle but if the world was proving too heavy for the shoulders of his daughter on a particular day, my Pop would usually change the channel to whatever rock station happened to be playing Eric Clapton and the like.  Our windows would be down, the wind sweeping away the bass vibrations with the oily exhaust spluttering from back pipe. We'd always exchange talk about our days, or rather I would usually just gush ecstatically about riding horses and mucking out stalls - for me, another day in paradise. I was rarely scared of these creatures that towered above my tiny body. I learned their language, and simply trusted them to do me no intentional harm.

Of course, as I've gotten older and my understanding and perspective has evolved to look down upon many things in the world (both literally and figuratively), I am always so floored by the innocent candidness of the very young. As I navigate the seeming complexities of my own life, I can't help but yearn sometimes for the unquestioning clarity of vision that kids enjoy. For example, walking through the Seattle Art Museum's Picasso exhibition with Claire last winter I was gazing upon an abstract painting of a naked woman, reclining comfortably despite the various contradictions of her curvy dimensions. I stood there for a moment, to admire the piece of course, but moreover to attempt to understand the crazy twists within Picasso's brain intellectually - the rationale that liberated him from coloring inside the lines of classic artistic tradition. I soon found however, that my serious intent of making sense of Picasso - an effort that would have been appreciated by "sophisticated" adults - would be momentarily overturned and ridiculed by two young brothers between five and eight years old who proved more open-minded than anyone else on that floor.

"What is that?" the littlest brother asked, shaking his blonde head into unruliness, and putting his nose as close to the paint as possible. I could almost hear my inner art snob wimper.

"C'mon, isn't it obvious?" retorted the older brother. "It's obviously an octopus, duhhh. See?" pointing innocently toward the woman's breasts, claiming them to be the "octopus' eyeballs,"  the many limbs the creatures legs, dangling precariously into surrealism.

Grinning happily and pushing back the peels of laughter that threatened to burst out of my chest, I stalled behind them, hoping to hear the conversation evolve. But of course, two seconds later the boys were off to the next masterpiece, interpreting art in blasphemous ways that only children can (and can get away with).

It got me thinking, and as I was again reminded today thinking through some of the decisions I must make soon, about how upon entering adulthood, we choose to see the world in incredibly regimented forms. I know we can't necessarily "unlearn" or "uncondition" ourselves from the society we've come of age in. But the ability for the young boys to see something completely different - an octopus - in place of the "right" answer, aka. a highly sexualized female figure, was thrilling.  And, it made me wonder what I've trained myself to no longer see.

What kind of world have I left behind? What happens when I think about such things as truth, life, trust, love, and happiness in terms of what joyful or devastating experiences such things have brought?

Moreover, it makes me think about ways in which I can look up at the world in wonder and curiosity, instead of down upon it with the conceit, cynicism, and arrogance that is often "wisdom" gone sour.

No, I don't wish for innocence. Going through the various growing pains of junior high, high school, and even college once is enough. But, it is fascinating to me to think about what life would be like living with the perspective of an adult but the openness and innocence of a child. Authors and poets have waxed on about this since the beginning. My assumptions of the "obvious" having been challenged by those two boys, I can't help but fall into the same timeless musings about (thanks again, Camus) the "art" of living.

To love joyfully and ecstatically, but without blindness.
To trust wholly, but only those who earn it.
To think pragmatically, but never without compassion.

And so I can only hope that the juxtapositions upon life's canvas can coexist much like the octopus and Picasso's painted woman. For perhaps they aren't really so obviously different afterall.

The Animal Who Loves the Sun.

I'm up again, it's 1am, I'm hanging out in my favorite fleece and underwear. James Taylor is soothing me with lines about country roads and escape, and Heidi just knocked on my bedroom door to bring me a freshly baked peanut butter-chocolate chip cookie.

Am I lucky or what?

I've been in a bit of a funk all day, and couldn't really tell you exactly why. There's a lot of things that have been weighing down my spirits the last few days. Yes, I lost my uncle to a horrible car accident, and watched Oma gasp for breath and fade before my eyes this past weekend. What's strange though is that after my good cry on Friday, I've felt so incredibly calm that really everything has seemed sort of surreal, a blur. I've jumped right back into everything - school, workouts, social stuff, and thesising - yet I almost feel like I've tiptoed through the last few days, waiting for the other shoe to drop, some other bad thing to happen, and I've warned Whoever or Whatever or Fate about the consequences of testing my strength again anytime soon. I'm just completely exhausted.

You cannot imagine (or maybe you can) how much more I've thought about death the last few days, how I waited  for the text message from Mom telling me her flight landed safely, and Pop to say that the drive back home was uneventful. These events usually wouldn't even carve a spot out on my radar - it's been easy to accept that things generally turn out just fine. Afterall, I've traveled the world and have always come home safely. What is there to fear? I think youth allows you to laugh at death, or even on a particularly good day, you might even squeeze in an eye-roll or two at an otherwise seemingly distant phenomena. Yet, now it's like a little dark cloud is following me around, just to challenge my resolve to remain optimistic. I guess the sunrise of consciousness casts long shadows.

Just look at 'em! What a guy!

Albert Camus, my absolute favorite thinker and writer, in his Lyrical and Critical Essays (which he wrote when he was 22...amazing!) best teases out my recent thoughts regarding death. He writes: "A young man looks the world in the face. He has not had time to polish the idea of death or of nothingness, even though he has gazed on their full horror. That is what youth must be like, this harsh confrontation with death, this physical terror of this animal who loves the sun" ("Nuptials," 77)

He continues: "Death and colors are things we cannot discuss. But can I really think about it? I tell myself: I am going to die, but this means nothing since I cannot manage to believe it and can only experience other people's death. I have seen people die. Then I think of flowers, smiles, the desire for women, and realized that my whole horror of death lies in my anxiety to live! I love life too much not to be selfish. What does eternity matter to me. ("Nuptials" 78)

This love of life, this saturated, infatuated demand and desire for closeness with the world is to understand the glory of loving life unconditionally in spite of the cruel irony that death creates. It is acknowledging the inevitability of death that frees you from its grip in a way, in which suddenly "learning patiently and arduously how to live" ("Nuptials" 69) becomes enough. All we must do as human beings then is learn how to live joyously despite the futility of our struggle. Indeed, "there is no love of life without despair of life" ("Love of Life," 56). and so perhaps my doubts place me in not such a bad place after all. Rather, I am just an animal who loves the sun.

Time to cast off the dark storm clouds.