the shadow

A few days ago I had a shadow. Someone asked me if I would allow their kid shadow me for a day. He was a young college kid that doesn't know what the hell he wants to do. I think there are several things this kid was missing. The number one thing is drive... he needs something, an idea to shoot for. Something that will actually make him want to reach for something. It is one of the most awesome feelings in the world to have hand a light to someone and see them grasp it. I don't know if the kid will run with it or not... but the seed was planted. He has potential, as most of us do. We all need to work to turn it in to something great.

The older I have gotten and the more I have seen of the world the more and more I know I am lucky. Really really really lucky... I have a natural drive for what I do. I didn't have to work to find it. It found me when I was young and I grasped it. At the same time, this has made a lot of other things in my life very very hard. Things others experimented with and spent time on I never did. I struggle with life because of that reason. I don't know what I am doing with the day to day of living. Life is a complex painting to me but I see the computer world like it was simple photograph. I have looked at the brush strokes in a paintings and they have always made me wonder how the hell can that be possible to create. It looks random and uneven. A photograph is simple to me on the other hand... something existed and it was captured for all time in a still frame. It makes complete sense how it was made. I can see the pixels and they are perfectly uniform in size and shape and distance apart.

This shadow has made me really think about what in my life has pushed me one way or another. There are a lot of good people from my life that have shaped me. My parents are great people and raised me with a solid base of moral attributes by there simple and solid behavior. They didn't need to teach me anything about it. I learned from what I saw. I have never really had to question what was right or wrong, it is generally just clear to me. That doesn't mean I have stuck within those bounties all my life. I still walk outside them from time to time to breath a little. It isn't easy being 'good' all the time and I am not in my definition, 'good' most of the time. Being good has also become blurred as I have gotten older. It just isn't the same as being a kid looking at the future.

There is one thing I never really remember doing as a kid... thinking about the future. I always seemed to look at today and tomorrow, but never next week. I always felt living to far in the future was a waste of today. You have to always be able to change to meet what is coming. I live with the idea that next week is going to be 'THIS WAY' and it ends up 'ThAT WaY' then you area lost for that entire week. We need to use our instincts an common sense more often then we do. Sometimes there are things that happen we will never expect and we can't be rigid when they do or we will break. I have been there, broken and destroyed. Most of the time we survive... but what walks away isn't the same person as we were before. I am still really trying to find who I am after. It is sad but it wasn't until after I broke that I realized I didn't even know who I was. I guess being broken has a way of changing your perspective of your life before being broken. I can't even imagine doing what I was doing before. It was what I was 'supposed' to do. I guess that made me the ridged enough to be able to break when things changed.

Now I literally live day to day. I have almost no outlook of what is coming. I am trying hard to figure something out because I feel lost as is and it is a lot harder to stay sane. But at the same time I know making choices that lock you in to a ridged idea make life even harder. I have made some of those lock me in type of decisions this year out of desperation for something solid. I did it out of the idea that they aren't forever if they are wrong. I know if I am to ever make a real life long choice again... it will take a lot of soul searching to make sure it is right for me.

Everyone needs a push in a direction from time to time but we also need to make sure the direction is right and that the push isn't down a mountain.

Andrew

Status of life

I feel I have been fairly quite on my blog recently, I think it is because of all that is happening that I haven't blogged about yet. So here is a status update from my world. There has been more and more happening in my personal life and less and less happening in my work life these days. It is a welcome change right now too. Work can be depressing when news isn't the best and a slow personal life adds to that depressing feeling. At the same time it is not the best thing for me financially as a busy personal life generally costs more then the simple boring life in front of a computer that I embrace so well!!

My personal life has become more social then it has ever been before and I have met some of the most exciting people in all my life. One person is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in very a long time. She sees and reacts differently to me then anyone has ever done before. We all have been through the "getting to know you" time when we meet someone new. This person completely blew me away by stating things about and to me that made it seem as if she already knew me... no it was more than that... it felt as if she instantly and completely understood me, like she knew my thoughts as if she could read my mind. I am having a hard time putting the exact feeling in to words as new feelings are always hard to understand and even harder to describe. Needless to say this person quickly became a part of my life. I am sure I will blog about this more as time passes and I understand it all better. Until then and for now, I am extremely happy that I have a chance to get to know the person that seems to already know me better then anyone I have met before and possibly even better then anyone I will ever meet again.

All this excitement has me more on edge then I normally am. I have tried to used this extra tension and resulting energy in a positive way. I have opened myself up to people and new ideas more then I normally do. I am trying to do more branching out. I have been working on this expanding of my horizons for some time. I have done fairly well in a slow progressive way. I hope for the possibility with this push of openness and growing that I might finally reach a personal goal of feeling truly free. I imagine just waking up one day to the world looking different, to a dawn of new possibilities, and to the end of my feelings of internal captivity. Sometimes I think it is just a dream to ever reach this goal. It is a dream I will strive to make come true!!!

Well that is more than an update of the status of life, but when I point myself down a path you can never tell exactly where my thoughts will go. Until the next path....


Andrew