THOUGHTS: The Line Between Peaceful Resignation and Defiance

My whole life, for the most part, has lent my confrontational abilities to be quiet, contemplative, and secure. I've convinced myself that doing so makes me the better person, stronger for having the maturity to not instigate or fight back. This has done volumes in serving me well to a degree. Situations tha could have become fights, brawls, friendship-ending knock-down, drag-out battles rooted in misunderstandings and miscommunications have been calmly placed on a back-burner, while the real issues have been addressed with resolve.

The caveat to this train of thought is that in doing so, one could constue the actions here as avoidance, cowardice, and pensievity. The truth is, in certain situations, this assessment is true. There are times when the truth must be sought through the heat of battle, when it cannot be obtained by taking the road around such infernos of emotions. These are times when that fine line between deciphering which road is the higher one is almost impossible to see.

Erring on the side of caution is a wonderful idea, but I have to question it. If one is to always err on the side of caution, are they not liable to err too much, to err themselves into a complacency where the risk involved with standing up to an issue has the potential to reward you even more?

Next time you're in a situation where you feel like youe more noble for sitting it out, for thinking about it and returning with a response when the seas have calmed a bit, consider this: you may be adding fuel to a fire by refusing to jump into that fire and plug the leak. Sometimes we have to immerse ourself in our conflicts to really address and correct them, and there is nothing less noble by taking this path.

Went outside in a hard rain, and then suddenly the rain stopped. Literaly like someone flipped a switch. Bizarre!

THOUGHTS: Music and Reflection

It's amazing how powerful melody and rhythm can be when put together. I was journalling and writing a friend a letter tonight, and I had some post-rock from a band called "The Darning Needle" playing in the background. One of the two guys in the band used to be my production manager when I worked in Denver, and he had told me about one song he had written for his grandmother who had passed away just before then. It came on, and it took me back to a place in my life where I was just starting this BattleWagon Chronicles.

Music, to me, is a memory trigger stronger than a smell or a photograph or visiting a place. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's a very dark place. I was taken back earlier to a happy place in high school by having an "Usher" song pop into my head. It reminded me of cruising around in my friend Stephen's Mazda 626, drivin up and down F Street in Salida, going to 7-11 to get nacho's and Mountain Dew.

I found that when I want to immerse myself in a contemplative emotion, I have to do little else than put some headphones on and listen to the type of music that I feel will put me in a better place. Nothing beats finding an Alaskan beach, quiet, the moist fall air in my lungs, and some of "The Helium Arch" or "Maserati" or "Radiohead" gently pouring its way into my soul through my ears.

I dig music.

CHRONICLE: Tatoosh Island

Saturday morning, my friend Steve took me fishing north of here toward an island called Tatoosh. We loaded up the Golden Rule and left Knudson Cove, tired and mellow for different reasons. We hopped north of the Revillagigedo coast and started trolling maybe a mile off-shore. The poles got dropped in the water, and we enjoyed the creature comforts of this fine boat. The Rule, a thirty foot metal-hulled Almar, is complete with a dinette, kitchen, bunk, and head, and features a nice deck out back for fishing and the like.

Twice in our outing we spotted pods of humpback whales bubble-feeding. This is fascinating. The whales swim in slow circles, releasing air bubbles forming a large column around a school of herring. They gently make the circle smaller until the school is densly packed, afraid to swim through the bubbles. When this is accomplished, the whales then open their giant mouths and swim upwards, into the fish, and breach the surface of the ocean. What we see from the boat is a huge mass of seagulls diving for fish in the moments before giant gaping whale mouths jut out of the water. It's pretty spectacular.

After catching one (and only one) silver salmon, we trolled to Tatoosh, where we navigated inside a narrow channel. Steve wanted to show me some virgin cliffs, ripe for the climbing. It doesn't look like a very difficult peice of property, and the whole experience has done a lot to motivate my climbing sensibilities. I miss being outside, truly being lost in it. It may be time to get out soon.

THOUGHTS: Some Weird Astronomical Timing/Respecting the Natural Flow

Weird how some events seem to converge at certain times. People who don't know each other, somehow feel very similar things at very congruent times. Even if the things they feel aren't related, somehow the scope of their emotions and the type of their emotions seem to ramp up at similar times. Some would accredit this to fate or astrological timing. I don't care much to figure out why, as it takes my focus away from immersing myself in the simple fact that it purely IS.

I sit here pounding away on a tiny keyboard with my sore thumbs after having put in an arduous day at work digging holes and pouring concrete.  My house's emotions were somewhat spun into a negative place through my own ignorance, which has happened before. That was addressed. Then I had a conversation and a text-ersation with two very close friends on separate issues, issues which I was helpless to change except by lending an ear (or eyes) and some very gentle words of encouragement.

Life experience has taught me not to dwell on my own shortcomings, to quietly and affirmatively listen to those who need to be listened to, much like a barkeeper in a small hole-in-the-wall does to the wayward patron. Listen. Keep their glass full, and they'll keep the cup full of thoughts and emotions, a cup more fruitful when shared than when imbibed alone.

We all fall victem to ourselves and our surroundings too often. More often than not, it's to ourselves in our reactions to our surroundings or our actions. What we frequently fail to realize is how much our own head chooses our path for us instead of just letting us go with the natural course of things.

The Dark Side

If you're at all a follower of the Star Wars saga, you've likely heard Master Yoda say things like: "fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side." Yes, he's said many other things, but because of my mood this evening, this one has jumped to my mind. However, like a mathmatician, I've rearranged the wording to answer my own mood. If fear leads to anger, than one could assume that the root of anger is fear. And since I'm in a grumpy mood, I could assume that it's really because I'm scared.

Then again, Yoda may just be full of crap.  Who knows?

At any rate, I find myself in a conflicting and admittedly selfish mood this evening. The ebb and flow of life has presented upon me several congruent issues, things which some would consider great joys, others which some would refrain from even discussing, and still more that are simple, clear-cut, black and white as day and night, yet, for some reason, has left a small and menacing trace of itself in my head.

I suppose I should do as I've preached on this blog before and just let things be as they are, take them at face value, acknowledge their part in me and my part in them, and move on, instead of letting my mind sever and reconnect and break and repair, over and over again, my understanding of what is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? And if life was ever truly broken, then none of us would be around to figure out why anyway.

Huh.

...I think I may be on to something.

More of the Political Game

A few days go, I got caught up in the local nonsense. It's interesting to live in a state that only has one representative to the U.S. House of Representatives. It's also weird that when I've contacted one of my U.S Senator's offices, I've gotten a call back from that Senator, albiet after a month or so. In Colorado, the closest I ever got was seeing a representative in a "town hall meeting", which was unfortuntely little more than a speech given in too small a venue to make it seem more intimate.

Alaska feels disconnected from the rest of the country. In a way, it's because the people here are proudly defiant, and in another way, they're shamefully dejected. Either way, people feel like they're on their own up here. For having such a vast quantity of so many natural resources, there is also a lot of federal interference in the procurement of those resources. The timber industry has been annhiliated here. There was a huge pulp mill not one mile from where I live now that employed hundreds of people just over a decade ago. Many of those who lost their jobs blame Washington for the more strictly watched and counter-productive rules and regultions in timber.

Alaska trips me out.