Poems of the Beat

I am suddenly captivated by beat poetry.

It's all because of this:

...and then this.....

I want to be a whimsical beat poet.
Or at least have this band following me around, sound tracking my day.

Maths Teaching!

Something I made the other day.
Funs!

Pictures of Flowers

Mind

My mind feels like it is crumbling. All I can do is think, and all I want to do is stop thinking these same thoughts. They are old. They are had. I know them, and nothing is progressing from them. This knowledge is not helping to change anything, because all I know is what I want to change; what I want to know.

How do you escape this loop?
How do you change things about yourself that you feel like you have no control over?
Where do you start when you feel like everything needs to change?
How can I stop myself wanting something?

Life would be much easier if I didn't want love. I would never have to worry about what love is; how it is different from friendship; what do you look for in someone; should I really gamble everything for it; is it really all I need?

And should I even waste my time on such thoughts, if God has me lined up to be single?
Pepetual singleness, a fate I have contemplated a number of times, is not the story I was hoping to live out but given who I am, and how I struggle with people it might be for the best. Many people I've spoken too say that they couldn't do it, that it would be unthinkable, but I believe I could. I mean sure, the thought of never enjoying the partnership of a marrage or the joy of having kids is pretty sad, but there is plenty of other joy and intense companionship to be found in this life. I just need to stop myself from wanting these other things. If I could only properly give up on the hopes of being loved, then I could settle into this life alone. This is the part I am struggling with.

It is made harder by the fact that I don't know if it is God's plan for me. I can't make myself give up desires unless I know I have to. A few of my friends have suggested that the fact that I want these things, the fact that I struggle to remove these desires tells me that I shouldn't/don't have to. If I want these things so bad, then either God had placed these desires in my heart, or he will want me to be happy and so work these things into his plan. Unfortunately, this is not the God that I know, or the world that I experience. I find myself wanting plenty of things that God surely does not want for me, plenty of ways the world pulls me away from God.

And so my mind goes to the other extreme. From not being able to know it searches desperately for conformation. Jumping at any sign that I will be alone, falling for any girl that might be right. All the while being unsure and uncommitted to anything.

Love here is just one dimension on which my mind is tossing and turning. Never knowing how to feel about myself, my habits, my beliefs, my future. I need to find a way of pausing it, just for a day, an hour, a second. There must be a way of tuning it out. A way of getting on with things without having to listen to the neurotic madman that runs this ship.

This post is simply an attempt to do so; to dump some of it on to the keys to get it off my mind. The digital equivalent of climbing a cliff and shouting into an abyss to relieve stress.

I should have mentioned this at the start. That this post should not be read with high expectations. Sorry.

When Boredom Overpowers (lack of) Skill.

I needed something to stop me loosing my mind in an unbelievably boring seminar today, so I wrote this. Interested to know what you think.

[Untitled]
Standing on the corner,
looking at the world.
Thinking how to deal with
all the insults that it's hurled.

Tell myself it's all ok,
the world just spills out hate.
Slow and scared, the world can't face,
that I actually might be great.

But hold on! if I'm to look,
past the arrogance of youth,
and see that what they say,
might contain some truth.

Careful though, how much you let,
the thought 'it's true' creep in.
It can easily flood your mind,
and the negative world will win.


I don't thinks it's complete.

Thought Control

We don’t need no television

It’s no revolutionary thought, but it struck me again last week just how bad television is. I’m not talking about the quality of the acting or the reused plotlines, I’m talking about the way it crushes my soul and dulls my mind. I have always said/thought that I watched tv to relax and let my mind rest, thinking that my mind can, and needs to, switch off from time to time. However, it is not so much resting my mind, as it is removing it’s ability to do anything.

It eats up my time, as I sit here staring blankly without a thought. I’m rarely loving it, and it’s never improving my life, but I still can’t seem to make myself get up and turn it off. Why does it have this power of me? Over us, because I know I’m not alone. Lots of my friends have expressed staying up way too late.

And it’s dulling my mind.

And it’s shrinking my thoughts.

And it’s shaping my mind.

And it’s streaming their will.

How has this happened? How is it that a system has been set up, and the culture established that we so happily consume what they pump into our houses everyday with very little concern for the depth or breath of the content. It is a well known concept that you get out what you put in; you are what you eat. So then why do we so openly let someone else choose our mindfood. What they show is what we consume,  and what we consume is what we will mirror. And I don’t want to mirror that.

But it’s hard to catch. There is not always anything particularly wrong with what is on television. It’s not all smut and violence and crime (although a lot of it is), but it’s the more subtle themes that are worrying me. The world already has a loud enough voice in my ear telling me it’s all about my look, my cloths, my car, my lifestyle as reflected in my things, and my friends and our wealth. Why do I give this voice another access point?

If the thoughts that I am putting into my brain will become the framework around which I build my mind, I had better start using some better materials, or before long I will not even realize I’ve got nothing of my own.

Blood

There is something that I learnt today after my interest was peaked whist giving blood.
( I did not learn this at the donation center, as they had NO informational posters. Very disappointing)
((Having said that, I did then find these statistics on the red cross website, so they came through in the end))

((also, I know that this is not the correct use of parenthesis, but I think you will have understood what I was aiming for. Anyway, the content! GRAPH!)))

(you can click on it to make it large!)

A Stolen Thing

A poem made from a book,

An idea from a website.

A first attempt (a bit morbid)

Dance The Way I Feel

A thought:

An innate part of being a Christian is caring about what people think of you.

As part of being Christians one strives to reflect Christ in their life, make wise Godly choices, and treat people with love and respect. These are all good things, but the relational nature of them, and of the Christian faith as a whole means that they cannot be done independently of the opinions of others. We cannot just behave in a way that we feel is loving and respectful and not care if the rest of the population agrees with us. Our success at acting in a respecting manner is determined by how those we act around perceive our actions. Whether or not my actions were God glorifying and/or loving of those around me is not decided by how I feel about my actions, but what those witnessing those actions think.

I have always felt that it is good to not care what other people think about you, but I am coming to realise that it is important, and necessary. If I want to reflect Christ in my life, I need to behave in a way that not only I feel is loving and respectful, but also that others think is loving and respectful. So I must consider what those around me think of my actions, my intentions, and attitudes. What they think of me.

This is one of things that weighs me down the most as a Christian. I am happy to love and serve others, and to shape my actions around the ideals of love, respect and service of others, but having to consider how others want to me behave to see those things in my actions annoys me.

I have one friend, a leader in a certain Christian circle, who is always throwing the “is that the loving thing to do” line in my face. Making me do things that I don’t really want to do, or care about. I wouldn’t care if no one did them for me, but I can’t deny that other people think they are important, so they would feel loved if I did it, and most of the time I’m not doing anything important with that time otherwise. Drives me mad.

This is not to say that what other people think about you is the most important factor, and that we should shape ourselves entirely on the opinions of others. There is still the vane, image obsessed thoughts that can be involved, and are what first comes to my mind when thinking about this idea. I worked for years to not care about whether people like how I dress, looked, acted and am. And I will continue to try and not let those thoughts get all up in my headspace. The difference is in the direction. I will hold to not considering (too much) whether people like me, but I will consider if people think I love and respect them.

Photos #3

Cages On Our World

Cage the Coast

Cage the City

Cage the Play

Quote

This is a quote I heard today that reminded me of why I started this blog.

"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Purpose

I had always assumed that everything has, or at least at some time had, a purpose. I just figured that sometimes the purpose that an item once had was harder to find or see as it has been long since lost and disconnected with. Sadly, this has not held up well in my quest of explanations.

The first this I looked up was why left handed people are called "South Paws". This, it turns out, is linked to baseball as the fields they played on were traditionally facing west, so when a left handed pitcher put his pitching hand out, it was pointing south. Thus, they were called south paws, and it spread from there.

From this success, I moved onto another question that has been troubling me. What is the purpose of the Neck Tie? I had it in my head that I was informed that it was once used to wipe your mouth with, and from there became apart of fashion, loosing all purpose. This didn't feel completely right, so I had hoped that there was some great lost purpose for the tie, but this was not to be. As far as I can find, it is and always has been purely an item of fashion. Wikipedia suggests that it was just an item picked up from one culture to another because of fashion and the modern Neck Tie was simply the adaption of the cravat for a modern factory world.

This Yahoo Answers page suggest it has it's origins in Rome, warn by orators to warm their vocal chords.

This is all very disappointing I feel.

The next question I have; what is, or was the purpose of the collar?

Photos #2

Some more photos.

A Wild Coke Can.

The Fire Hydrant Down My Street

Photos of Instruments

Bass and Drums in the Gazebo

Drums, Bass and Guitar - the band.

If you are loving these, you can see more of the time I have waisted with a camera here.

Productivity

Productivity is hard.

There is so much else to do.

Killing time is easy,

the more you do it,

the boarder you get,

so you the more you do it.

Even when you see what needs to be done,

not doing it is always easier.

And there are always lots of options,

until you have nothing to be doing,

then there is nothing to kill time doing.

Privilege

People. They annoy me. In particular people who treat driving as a right that they have and something that is just getting in the way of doing other jobs. It seems that they don't understand that driving is a complex task and a very dangerous one at that. You are in control of a tone of speeding metal being propelled by burning an explosive fuel, amongst a crowd of other speeding metal bullets being controlled by people. This is not something you can do with your spare attention.

It is also a privilege. It is not a right that you have. What do they think? They pretended to be safe and responsible long enough to get their licence so now they have the right to drive however they like? NO! You have gained the privilege of driving and you should not abuse that.

Example of such abuse, talking on the phone. Talking on the phone takes too much of your attention to do while driving, they have done many studies to show this and that is why it is illegal, not just for fun. Not only is it dangerous, as far as I can tell, it is completely unnecessary. I do not know of anyone that is so busy that they MUST make a call whilst driving. I understand that sometimes there will be extraneous circumstances that create the need, but they are rare.

In my opinion, and of course this is just my opinion, there is rarely a need to be talking on the phone whilst driving and every time I see it, it makes me mad. It is an abuse of the privilege of driving, and arrogantly risking the safety of all the other drivers on the road.

This then got me thinking, if driving is a privilege that they abuse, are there privileges that I abuse? And I have to say yes. My whole life is a privilege, and I am abusing it. There is so much that I could be doing, trying, mastering, failing, experiencing, enjoying and seeing, and I don't think reruns of Friends is they best one. Hell, even the rubbish food that I eat is an abuse of the privilege I have to be in country where I can eat whatever I want without any real worry of malnutrition or starving. So from now on, instead of getting angry at drivers on the phone, I am going to use that as a reminder to stop waisting so much of the privilege that I have.

Photos #1

Some photos that I have taken.

Party Time

Donny Formal Fun times

Down the line

Night time reading

Things to do in this lifetime.

Do you ever here something that puts an idea in your head? Sometimes it is as simple as the action being mentioned, and sometimes it's completely unconnected but starts you down a train on thought that makes you think of doing something.

This is list of things inspired by moments like that. Things that I would love to do before i must resign myself to staying at home and just remaining alive. Sadly I know that I will never do all of them, and that is ok, as this is not a bucket list. I plan to keep adding to it as my mind is brought to more foolish plans. So, in no particular order:

This to do on this Earth:

• Get lost in a city where I don't speak the language (preferable at night)
• Get in a taxi and say "Follow that car!" (preferable if I don't the car, or need to follow them)
• See Looptroop live in Sweden
• Turn up on the doorstep of an old friend.
• Kick a door in.
• Everything I'm told I probably shouldn't.
• Dunk a basketball.
• Sell everything that wont fit into one backpack.
• Be in 3+ countries in one day.
• Wake up not knowing what country you will sleep in that night.

While writing this list, I have come to realise something. I have done a lot of fun things. As I was recalling things I once wanted to do, or thinking of new things to hope to do, I kept thinking of thing I have already done. This made me smile. But still, there are many more adventures to have.

What I have been doing.

I have been preparing for exams.

But more than that, I have been putting off exam prep.

I have also been doing lots of stuff, but very little of note.

I have got a camera.

So here is a photo.

Expect more.

Lots more.

Still here

Hello blog,

This is just a quick note to say that I am still here.

I will get onto writing more, when my life is less full, but for now, it's back to my 4 assignments and director issues.

Hope you are well.

David

Got to be starting something.

I feel like I should be doing something.

I know I should.

There is lots I have to get done.

But nothing I feel like doing.

I want to do something.

I just can't find what I want to do.

I'm even sure it's something productive.

But what?