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

My Name

My name is Andrew. I have many identities. Which one is the real me I am not really sure. Actually I don't' think I have ever been completely sure who I am. It goes along with being lost in this world. Everything I do seems to require a new version of myself to be created. Sometimes I don't' think I can keep them all straight and inline with the people I interact with. But somehow I do.

It isn't often we get a wake-up calls. When I am on a business trip I like to use the feature because it leaves me with a sense of importance that lasts throughout the entire day. Gives my business traveler identity something to hold on to as I work. When I get home I loose that wake-up call and thus the business traveler dies until he is needed again.

It is things like wake-up calls that bring out the things in me that determine who I am every day. It is the days that don't' have those types of triggers that haunt me. It is those days that I have to 'be myself'. When I don't know who I am for real, it is hard to become that person. I see myself as many different things, none I can honestly see when I look at myself through the looking glass of reality. I rely on the triggers to allow me to change to who I need to be. To strip away everything that doesn't have anything to do with what I need to do. To forget about all the other stuff that might get in the way of completing what I need to for today's identity.

For a long time I wasn't even aware I was doing this. It was reflex. Just like now I am plying the role of a blogger because that is what is needed to complete what I decided to do in front of this keyboard. When I blog nothing else matters around me. All distractions are blocked out because the goal of completing the written thought is the only sight I have. There are a lot of times when I read what I have written and I think 'why did I type this?' 'Why did my mind go down this path this day?' I spend hours thinking about it because while I am a blogger things seem different then when I am not. Thoughts seem clearer and sharper then they do before or after. Now that I have realized what I do and partly why, it makes figuring out who I am more interesting. Because I am all the identities that I can become.

I know when I am done with this I will read it and be very disturbed about what I have written. There are many times I think myself a raving lunatic. At the same time I feel as if I am taking a few thoughts about something mundane and turning inside-out and taking it to extremes that I can only imagine to be real. When reality looks at it there is very little that fall in to the that realm. It is because of that I still sit down to blog. I think pushing the limits of what is my reality makes me see what is really there in front of me more clearly. In the end it isn't good or bad but it is my way. It is one part of the full identity that makes me Andrew. It keeps me moving forward in the search of who I am.

There is one fear I have always had about finally figuring myself out. If I ever do then I there will be constrains in who I have to be every day. Just like the business traveler has things he must do, my real self will be held to things. I don't like fitting in to any one mold because I like always being different. Maybe that is who Andrew really is.


Andrew

The return

I have neglected my blog for a while now. Something I should be doing. I have my reasons but they really boil down to excuses, so, they don't really matter. What does matter is that I need to write all this stuff down so I don't keep it bottled up.

I am working again. Throwing myself in to a a bit. Not as much as I have done in the past but enough to gain the knowledge and get the job done and a little extra above and beyond. I thought I would feel great about working again. I do in some ways be in others I am still feel a bit lost. This job is more lonely than others I have had in the past. I work with people but we don't work together the same way as I am used to. I knew going in things would be different but I find myself longing for the comradeship I remember from prior jobs. The 'us' against 'them' idea. I guess I have always looked at my work as it was a battle against the hardware and software. There is nothing it can do to keep me from keeping it in line and working like it was designed to do. It makes me smile thinking about all this. It is not every day you think about your job as much more than work. But, like they have always said, "If you love what you do you never work a day in your life". If what you do becomes a job, then it is time to think about doing something else. I know that isn't a option for everyone and it isn't much of an option for me. Even if I thought this was a job, I don't think I would be happy doing anything else.

There is one simple worry that I have yet to find a solution to. Did I make the 'right' decision taking a job that moved me away from 'home'. After spending as much time away from there as I have, going back gave me a happiness I haven't had in a while. It didn't feel good at first, because it felt like defeat. But time showed me that it was my family I missed and didn't know I was missing them. It was being around and having the nieces yell "Uncle Andrew" from time to time that made me feel like I was supposed to be there. Here I am back to being hours away again. this time I can drive down and see them from time to time. But it will never be the same as being right there to go help out whenever they need it. Or just show up out of the blue to say Hi.

There are other things not really going all that well here. I have never been rich or made a ton of money. My work ethic and knowledge has always provided for me. I hate take steps backward. It is demoralizing. It is hard looking at your budget and knowing that you only have scraps available to be able to have a life other than home and work. And sometimes not even that. I have lived like this before and more often than I care to admit. Most people think that jobs pay you to get what you need to live and a little extra to have a life. But there are a lot of us that don't make the money needed to have extra. I was thinking the other day about being single and how alone I was feeling... most of the single people out there know what I am talking about. I know I should be out looking for someone to fill that void. My job and life doesn't support that idea. Yeah that is the backward way to think about it compared to how we expect it to be. I may have different feelings on this than most people but the After School Specials never showed that sometimes reality doesn't allow people to live first and work second. Sometime work has to come first so that life can be maintained. I am not saying money is everything... but money allows you to do things that make life better. Cooking your own food at home is great, I love ever minute doing it, but, a nice meal at a good restaurant with friends can make even the worst days feel like sunny day in the park. I haven't always been good with my money. But I have paid for those mistakes several times over and I have worked hard to fix and move on from those. There was a photo of a line graph shared by a friend on facebook some time back. It was Prestige over Time. There were two lines: Expected Career Path - a nice 45 degree upward climb, and Actual Career Path - a line always lower then the expected, jumps up and down, and seems to always get further away from the Expected line over time. The space between the lines was colored in and labeled Why We Drink. I feel like I am on the down side of one that line right now. The drinking part left out it is exactly how life goes sometimes. Those that stay on the expected path have to choose work over everything else in order to stay on that line. I don't expect to be on the line. I just want to be above the line that was missing... the comfort line.

They say with age comes wisdom. I agree with that statement, but it is more about time then age. As you get older you had more time to ponder ideas and figure out more closely there true meaning. IF you don't take the time to think, wisdom will never come.

Andrew

The Hindrance Dream

Yeah the title says a lot. it takes a lot to realize that your own faith in your dreams are holding you back from doing things that may lead to a better you and a better life. I can't go in to specifics about the dream because it involves other people. I don't like discussing those kinda topics anyway. It is hard to separate what would and would not be offensive.

So in an effort to avoid the entire thing I will take about other things sort-of related to the subject at hand. Because it is the only thing I have been able to think about for a long time there is no other subjects. So this will be a short post.

Have a great fourth of July everyone!!!

Andrew

Blogs, what they mean

There are a lot of days that I am down on myself. I don't like the person I am. It isn't every day but most of the time it seems to be the days that count for something. Those days that seem to require me to think about the future or make changes. Today was one of those days. It was a day when I realized I need to step up and be more than just the smart intelegent person that I am. I need to become part of something bigger then just the world I have seen and expand myself.

Days like today are scary. Once I see the need to grow, I feel I am compelled to do it or be deemed 'failure'. It reminds me of the day I attempted to climb Camelback mountain. I didn't even make it half way up. I was a lot more out of shape now compared to now, well maybe, but the idea of failing don't feel very good then. I am sure it would feel worse now. The problem now isn't that I can't do it like on the mountain. It is the fact it is going to take a lot of hard work and a huge amount of learning on my part to do the work correctly. I fear it may take me too long to get everything down and I will have to wing it for a while. I don't like doing that. I like knowing what I am doing and if I don't I like figuring it out at my pace. It makes me afraid that I may not be quick enough for what is needed.

When I start feeling like this I want to kick myself. I know doing that only makes it worse. So I am blogging instead. My blog therapy like I have been known to call it. It takes time and brainpower to type up a blog. It is the brainpower needed to get down on myself even more. I am able to think though all my ideas and feelings. Put everything in to words that I am thinking. To lift the burden of weight off my shoulders. I don't think it would work the same if I knew I wasn't publishing it to everyone on the planet. There is something to say about one way anonymous sharing. I don't know who reads it just the that there are always hits on my site after a post. Sometimes when I write I think of someone specific reading the blog. I write as if I was them reading it. It is never the same person and I don't even know if they read it or not, that isn't the point. I don't think It changes the outcome of why I blog but it does help me think about the ideas I am writing about from other points of view. I try to see it from someone else's eyes.

Reading what I just wrote makes me sound like I am writing to please other people with my writing or be 'like' someone else. It isn't like that. It is just not easy for me to describe what I do when I am typing. At one time I needed inspiration to blog. I am finding that with the more I blog and the more blogs I find myself reading, I am challenging myself more to describe the 'hard stuff'. I am treating it more like I do everything else in my life, it is something to overcome and become the best at. I will never be great but I might just be good someday.

Until all the challenges are met in my life. Blog therapy is here to stay.

Andrew

Chapter ...

Every time I turn around there is something starting anew in my life. It doesn't always seem to come when or how you expect it. I thought moving away from Arizona would be my fresh start. A way to stop seeing the reminders of the 'good-ole-days' and the bad ones too. That didn't work out the way it was supposed to and I ended up back home sleeping in the same bedroom I when I was young. When I first found out about my misfortune I considered going back to Arizona right away. But I was already too defeated to face the life I left again so quickly.

Living here in my hometown now that I have grown up and seen some of the world a little has been an eye opening adventure. The people I left behind here have changed, or at least I see them more clearly for who they are. There is one thing that hasn't changed one bit, my memories of growing up here. I have spent a lot of time thinking about those memories over the last 5 months. Thinking back over all the stupid mistakes and childish bull shit I used to cause and all the fun, pain, laughter, sadness, and joy. It is surprising when you think about everything you lived through that it all combined together created who you are. I think I have taken too much credit in the last several years for the role I truly played in my personal mission to become a better me. I think everything was already there just hidden by all the BS I and the world built around it. Every day I spend here shows me something I missed or misunderstood as the child that left here. I think I know now a little of what it means to grow up. I still hold dear to a few child-like parts of myself. Without them I wouldn't be me.

These last few months have felt like a word from the author stuck between chapters. I have weathered this douldrum fairly well. At first I threw myself into this big idea to survive and try and forget what was happening. It was and is a great idea but dumping everything I was in to it almost smothered it. The idea is still with me but I am not devoting everything to it anymore. I am letting it build upon itself. Maybe I can devote more time to it in the future but for now it is just an idea that I can't make become reality overnight.

I hope that this new start is actually the new chapter I was looking for. It isn't where or when or how I planed it but none of us can know the time or place.

Andrew

The Next Chapter is coming...

Another pause in posting

This time technology is to blame. With the upgrade of my Motorola Droid to a Droid X2 the Wordpress app is crashing. With that being my main access to the internet, the lull in posts will continue until it is repaired by the dev staff. :(

On the bright side, not having the ability to post may have saved me from posting things I shouldn't have.

Until the update... don't do anything I wouldn't. lol

Andrew