A drunken entry on the plane about life

Looks like the guy was drunk when he did this

Random Observation/Comment #221: 13-hour anything-rides are a pain in the ass – like literally, your ass may fall asleep and it may be painful.  Before the plane ride, I thought I had the best plan: Drink alcohol, get drunk, and fall asleep.  What I didn’t take into account was how quickly I get trashed while 15,000 ft in the air.  Gin and tonic was my toxin of choice, and after 5 glasses, I was very entertaining and a delight to be around (at least that’s how I felt).  After snoring and dozing off for 4 or 5 hours, however, I woke up with a sick feeling. It could have been the yogurt at dinner, or the alcohol itself, but the next 5 hours were the worst. The lady sitting next to me gave me dirty looks for making her get up to use the bathroom so much.  Never again – well, maybe on the ride back.

Note: This ridiculously long flight (where I was trashed half the time and sick the other half) still gave me time to write. I had written this in a drunken state, but I think it was interesting.  I, honestly, don’t even remember writing this.

Life doesn’t exist in phases: I think we just separate them that way when we’re younger to make things easier to understand. More important than the phases are the values that are learned while growing up.  Life seems to be mostly about how you think about life.  Pessimistic people will find bad things and optimistic people will expect and look for good things. Why not just see things for how they are and go with the flow?  Make sure your current situation is the best that it can be, and then plan ahead to make the situation even better.  Make sure you’re indulging in your joy and then spread that joy to those around you.

I found that “make yourself happy” is a fairly simple line of thought.  Of course, “I” does matter a lot, since I don’t think “I” is stupid enough to do harmful things to him, but continuously thinking about “I” would never advance a civilization.  It’s always been the bonds you form and the community you join that makes the world a better a place. I think I knew this when I first started traveling, but I didn’t really enforce it because I kept traveling and distancing myself from a community around me.  This blog was the only attempt I made to stay connected to a community I created for my own pleasure.

In many ways, my happiness was selfish: girls treated, not entirely as relationships, but as objects towards my own goals; degrees obtained to make money instead of help an advancing scientific world; hobbies existing as little side projects that pretty much only made me smile; tasting extravagant foods and wines/beers/spirits just so I could build my own opinion about them.  I wasn’t consciously making these decisions to obtain my own selfish goals, but I think I do owe many apologies for my previous actions that were sub-consciously made selfishly.  It is, however, this adjustment of character that should help me approach the world with more respect.

However, now that I know that this is the path I will take after I mature, I am wondering how quickly I should mature.  There are so many people out there who haven’t even begun to think about this, and I wonder if I should take advantage of the years I have to stay immature.  Of course, I will still have my values, but shouldn’t I be taking risks and exploring?  The only thing that floats in the back of my mind is the fact that those around me will benefit from my actions. If I didn’t grow up, my parents couldn’t retire and have fun. If I didn’t grow up, my friends wouldn’t be able to have the baller life-style in the city.

I suspect many people would tell me to worry about my own life before planning to meet the goals of others, but I think it’s fair to have other’s goal in mind if I love my friends and family.  Without them, my goals wouldn’t be worth having anyway.

~See Lemons Drunk and Mumbling

Why Am I Still There?

Floating Staircases of dooooooom

Random Observation/Comment #212: Life isn’t as complicated as everyone makes it out to be, but I see now, more than ever, that we like to make problems for ourselves to solve. If we didn’t try to be self-destructive and dig ourselves a huge hole, we’d feel the opposite of complete – we would have a life with no problems and it would be the most boring thing ever.  There’s never the ultimate end-point of satisfaction in completing all of your tasks because we’re always pursuing problems that we won’t find the solutions to in our own generation.  It’s always been the stride for that greatness that has kept me going.  Where do I get my enthusiasm to always start new hobbies?  Looking back on how quickly college went, I know life is short.  Looking back on how many great memories I’ve had with friends and family, I know life is worth living.  I’m always looking for the next unexpected moment of uncontrollable laughter or indescribable happiness.  All I really want is something that makes me feel involved.  As a scientist (and general weirdo/geek/nerd/engineer), I’ve always been a spectator in this social experiment; why not start actively participating?  I think this is a valid excuse for not posting in 2 weeks.

I hear this phrase a lot when I’m around the new building: “What are you still doing here?”  It’s a simple question, but I wonder how many people want to hear the full story behind it or they’re just expecting me to say something like “Oh, I’m just visiting.”  It would honestly take at least 15 minutes and a few drinks to get the idea through because I’m still not yet sure myself.

I feel oddly attracted to Cooper – a place that has tortured me for 5 years and still continues to haunt me in my dreams.  I almost avoid seeing professors with fear that they can still make me do problem sets for them.  The nauseating feeling I get when I hear Professors try to explain safety rules to me just instinctively returns when I discuss Senior Projects.  So then, why did I write an article about the new building and then subsequently join the Cooper Pioneer to do an article about the pool tables if all of this stuff brings back dry heaving? I’m not really sure because it wasn’t a conscious decision; it just happened that way.

You know, it’s not even the question that surprises me: it’s actually the tone in their voice when they ask the question.  It’s a tone of confusion mixed with a hint of “don’t you have better things to do than to be a part of this place again?”  I must admit that, at first, it was just purely to continue taking pictures in my tourist state and then pursuing a curiosity about the new place after chatting about it so much.  I actually wound up being the designated tour guide for many of my classmates since I somehow knew the place best.

But, after a while, I felt myself arrive to the building out of habit.  It’s a nice building with decent wifi and a “smart-people environment” so, why not?  Would I look more grown up sitting down at a Starbucks drinking a tea and typing away on my computer so some hot Asian girl in a tight white jean skirt that comes there every morning recognizes me and will maybe sit down to chat with me?  Would I become that guy that sits at Starbucks writing random stuff on their laptop pretending to grab inspiration from the surroundings with hopes that the girl would ask me what I was doing?  Am I sitting in the Starbucks to capture the full details of the experience where I spoke with this random girl and accidentally gave her a wrong number? Do I avoid the Starbucks every morning because I waited too long to show up there as a routine anymore so now she thinks I am avoiding her because I didn’t enjoy our initial chat about monkeys in suits?… Maybe she’ll get it right if she tries subtracting the phone number I gave her by 400,000.

Anyway, I’m at Cooper because it’s still a nice place to do work.  Even if it’s a new building, I’m still somehow pushed to get things done by the smart-vibes that this environment exudes in cartoonish stinky waves.  It might be sad, or probably really creepy, but I’m just doing what I know works for me.  Plus, being able to stay in the “college community” in some way makes me psychologically avoid my most important current problem of growing out of the college phase.  I felt like the time I had in Germany was so incredible that if I could give Cooper another chance, it could make up for all those all-nighters with coffee and redbulls, and replace them with all-nighters with vodka and redbulls.

Above all else, trying to do work anywhere near the place where you grew up playing with legos and wetting your bed is a lost cause.  Even if it’s for the commute into the city and getting some fresh air, I just need to get out of the comfortable PJs, occasionally shave, and maintain sanity.  You may think job hunting and interview practicing is fun (if you’re crazy), but in reality, I can’t always write emails and search websites for this crazy opportunities; I need to keep moving and work on something interesting.  I never knew this about myself, but it’s good to know to know now: I need a new project every few months to challenge a different part of my brain.  And just like that (imagine I snapped my fingers), I decided to go into finance (just kidding, I love it).

~See Lemons Flutter

Productivity Bar

it makes sense...

Random Observation/Comment #204: This soul searching business is wearing me out.  I’ve written and thought so much about each subject methodically, yet I can’t make a solid decision.  Every damn methodical and calculated approach has been used, but I don’t feel like I’ve gotten anywhere (Where you goin’? – Nowhere).  If I really had a passion for this thing (whatever this thing is), shouldn’t the answer be obvious?  Maybe I just want to always continue soul-searching as an excuse to travel and prolong my final decision.  Can I have a career in soul searching?

I’ve come to the conclusion that my twisted version of productivity and efficiency sets an invisible bar for my happiness.  It has only happened recently, but I feel like the energy has been sucked from the marrow of my bones and all my muscles just mush with no will to do what I know I must.

This requires some background on my methods of productivity. When I was taking my large course-load at Cooper, I always found that there was one class that fell into a downward spiral of neglect.  This class would actually act as my cushion and motivation to do other work because the assignments were so dreadful that I rather quickly do all the other stuff and leave this one for last.  In most cases, it was some type of physics class or a class that involved the less hands-on projects and more of the abstract hand-waving that I would probably never realistically use.

Anyway, this odd method worked extremely well in the mindset and cluttered life of deadlines from a year ago, but the past few months has seemingly foiled my plans.  I’ve changed to a different structure that requires a different approach.  Some work still gets pushed aside while others are finished first, but the choice of the hindered subject seems to edge towards the path of most resistance, which incidentally is the much more important path.  As hobbies have suffered in the past, I now find these flickers of enjoyment to be essential in my life.

In no way is this vacation lacking all the ingredients for happiness, but something pecks – nay, it tickles – at my brain to the point where it’s passed the line of “haha” and tip-toed towards “blahahaha I feel like my insides are going to explode from uncontrollable laughter. Continue and I will kick you in the face.”  I’ve become slightly annoyed at myself that I don’t meet the deadlines I set even though I have full days with only a handful of tasks.  This wave of laziness from the summer weather and random distractions just mucks with my mind.  I’m befuddled at how little I get done and then I fall deeper into completing tasks for volume instead of necessity.

That bar was set so high, and now I’m degraded to lower it slowly without any apparent consequence.  It’s, as if, I’m falling into a lull of mindless activities – and, hopefully, it’s just a lull.  Even this blog slipped and just floated into a background obligation.  It seems I’ve manifested problems where they shouldn’t exist.  I thought my search was supposed to be simpler.

~See Lemons Defragment

Writing for You or Writing for Me?

Confusion

Random Observation/Comment #203: I seem to make more interesting observations and comments in my twitter feed.  They are definitely more succinct and directly relate to my everyday life.  I’m tempted to remove this section, but I really like how I’m keeping track of the posts with the comment numbers.

Ever since I’ve started writing, I’ve been trying to cling on to some type of purpose behind my entries for sanity and time efficiency reasons.  After a little more than a year, I’ve found that I have no idea what I’m actually writing about.  I’ve veered off topic so many times that it just jumbles between traveling and careers and just randomness.  And, even though there are multiple cases where I’ve tried desperately to find some coordination and path, I simply just forgot about the nice structure one arbitrary day and reverted to writing what comes to mind about my current situations.

It was on such a day (the ones where you feel like your memory has been wiped) that I bombarded myself with a slew of questions: Do I really want to write about the little details of my crazy adventures, or do I want to share my opinion and impressions about each place I’ve visited to help others make a choice?  Would people rather read about my version of a Wikipedia article on each city I’ve visited, or should I just write some ridiculous story?  Is the advice I draw from my experiences the value or are the experiences themselves more entertaining?  Should I make my conclusions or should I leave it open to interpretation?  Am I slowly becoming more humanities and losing track of my engineering straight-forwardness?

I found that these questions flooded my mind for one particular underlying reason.  I subconsciously felt that my writing was no longer for myself, but rather to please an audience of eyes.  Even though I may never see their faces or see un-typed responses, I have created my own stage.  It’s the stage in where you look out and you’re blinded by the spotlight.  It’s basically the spewing of some type of information to silhouettes.  I’d be happy thinking this way if I felt this was the purpose I wanted to portray, but I’m torn about the idea of “selling out.”  It’s not like I’m making money off of writing any of this – I’m really just trying to find myself and share these experiences with those who are interested.  But, the idea of shaping my personal reward and gratification on the basis of an invisible crowd just makes me feel slightly mad.

So my dilemma is that I’m stuck in this middle state between committing to an audience-based blog or a personal one.   I honestly fear both to their extremities.  I’ve definitely enjoyed writing in this free-flowingly manner to some fictional reader (or just another voice in my head).  However, my deepest reflections are still maintained in something separate and I’m reluctant to pull these confused moments into my posted writings.  I could write about topics that can easily gain trends and try to increase my viewers, but would I begin to lose my personality?  To put it a different way, am I more happy writing about my life so I could relive it or so I could share it and have others (possibly) benefit?  One I have some level of certainty and the other is in the shadow – somehow I just don’t know which is which.

Let’s try again: How do I explain this blog? Why do I continue if I’m starting to feel an invisible obligation that begins to interfere with my real world?  Each document has become my canvas to paint the confusions and battle the multitude of plausible views to – with any luck – come to a respectable decision or conclusion about my own character.  The interesting part is that I depend on it to work out the problems that are created by this same solution.  It makes me wonder if these problems would stop arising if I just didn’t write about them.  Hell – why not just stop thinking all-together?

~See Lemons Write for We?

PS – As I read back, it seems the painting on this canvas most closely resembles modern art.

cout >> “Dear World,”;

Random Observation/Comment #200: As a tribute to this 200^th post, I will do a little happy dance. *Does the happy dance*.  You didn’t see it, but it was actually performed.  With the amount of time and effort I put into this blog, I think I could have written a book by now.  Actually, a lot of the material is relevant to something like a Truth North self-help finding-ones-self type of book.  I guess I thought about this whole book thing because I thought of a random goal to achieve in the next 10 years.  I want to be on the Colbert Report.  The only minor detail to this ambition is my need to write something relevant to current events and politics, publish it, and have it as a best seller.  I guess before I can be a part of the Colbert Report, I need to be famous, and I’m wondering if that’s what I want.  In my own little competition with myself, I probably just want to do something that sounds cool.  “I was on the Colbert Report.” “That’s pretty badass.”

World: why are you filled with such bitter and sweet?  There are days where you’re a living Hell and others that just make me believe there’s no Heaven because it can’t get any better. Of course, I would be naïve to think that the majority of good I see could replace, or compare with, the suffering around the world, but everything has its moments.  I stay optimistic about you because you provide for me this medium of happiness.  I see you as a container of mixed nuts – you’ll always have the cashews, but sometimes the almonds will sneak in with their dry texture and evil ways.

Unfortunately, it is our nature to see evil much more than good.  Our criticisms just point out the mistakes because it makes good news.  We see a molding piece of bread in a batch and tend to throw them all away in fear of contamination.  And the weird thing is that it’s true.  I’m not about to speak religion in any way, but morality and this notion of evil does spread in weird ways.  It’s difficult to argue against the fundamental laws of humanity; the ones we find obvious, not by nurture, but by logic and understanding of our environment.

We want others to feel the same pain we feel when we’ve felt pain – I’ve seen this often with jealousy and violence.  But will the cycle ever end?  Does this mean we are allowed to make excuses for our own actions based on some general abandonment of hope?  I’m brought back to a Michael Jackson song (of course, I must make a reference): Man in the Mirror.  If you haven’t heard it, you should.  “If you want to make a world a better a place; take a look at yourself and make a change.”

World – it’s not your fault that humanity is flawed.  We’ve done some shit that we’re ashamed of, but there are moments of joy that make everything worth it.  It’s how we muster the strength to defend what is important – we have that desire to make those good times come again.  So World, can’t we all just get along?  This could be a plea from one that is aware of eventual destruction in this insignificant creature’s life in the marvels of the universe, but just give us a little bit longer?  I just need more time.  Four months was not enough.

~See Lemons Sincerely Clementine