THOUGHTS: Growth and Work

I've found lately that it's almost impossible to predict, well, anything, I suppose. On Friday, last week, we were told that we were going to get an inch or two of snow. That wound up being amost a foot and a half. Not to fault the meteorologists: they do the best with what they have, like most of us. However, it's not limited to the weather. We have certain things we take for granted in life: our tires will stay inflated in our cars. Our water will stay flowing in our house. Our loved ones will keep our trust. Our reactions will be respectful.

Suddenly, no matter how much those things have been constant, they can change instantly. The quiet stream that trickles gently within its banks can suddenly erupt in a torrent of frigid, muddy water that destroys everything in its path. Or... the one person who has always made fun of you, called you names, beat you up, they could suddenly be the one to give you a thousand dollars or a new car.

Everything in life is fluid. That old saying goes "hope for the best, expect the worst." That saying needs to include the word "always". That way, we are reminded that nothing is a sure thing, that those things we care about are not to be taken for granted. They require maintenance and must be allowed to grow and, if necessary, leave.

CHRONICLES: A Brief Cultural Lesson

I was going to wrie about something completely, but I thought i'd have to preface it, and that just became this blog entry. Enjoy!

I should tell you about some differences in names and definitions that people here use from people back home. First, when I was in school, I was taught that Alaskan's referred to where I lived as part of "the lower forty-eight". Actually, we just call it "down south". I was also taught that the area I live is called "The Panhandle". We call it "South East". Where I live is specifically "Southern South East", but it's South East.

In Colorado, we had natives, locals, and transplants. Natives were people born in Colorado. Locals had been there for 10 years or move, and transplants were usually recent arrivals. We also had "Californians" and "Texans", but they remained "Californians" and "Texans" as they never really "got it." Alaskans have Texans, too, but they don't get different things... like that Alaska is more than twice as big as Texas. However, transplants don't exist here. Once you're here for a few month, you're Alaskan. That being said, locals are also Alaskans, but if you call someone who was born here a "native" and they aren't descended from the indiginous people, you're wrong. In Alaska, native only applies to the original heirs of the land. In local cases, those are the Tlingit, Haida, and Tshimsiam tribes. Putting things together, I suppose the racial divide here is much more recent than it was in Colorado, where we simply called the Navajo by their name, as we did the Cherokee and the Ute, etc.

Another cultural difference is that, at least in Colorado, there's a large feeling that the land is ours to protect. Here, there seems to be a large feeling that the land is ours to exploit. I can't say I have strong feelings either way, as I'm an avid outdoorsman who enjoys scenery who also enjoys not paying $4.059 at the pump. So while I'm not a big fan of tearing up the hillside to get at everything we need to get to, nor am I a fan of clear-cutting a forest for profit, I feel compelled to say that if you have so much of something, you can utilize it responsibly and everyone's happier for it.

Anyway, I'll have to write another entry tomorrow and try to get on topic. All of this was going to be a preamble to me talking about wind and rain. Sheesh!

THOUGHTS: There's Rapids Behind That Bend

Here you are on a nice float trip, something akin to Ruby Horsethief on the Colorado River stradding the Colorado/Utah border. Mellow. Tie the boats together and start drinking. Throw some sunscreen on and enjoy the heat. Put your life jacket on and take a swim. No big deal.

But then suddenly you hear it, the droll rumbling up ahead. The relaxation of your trip so far has dulled your wits, and you think that you'll just climb back in your raft and enjoy the mild excitement that awaits. The rumbling grows louder. You proceed slowly, non-shalantly rolling over the edge of the boat and enjoying the sunlight. The walls of the canyon seem to come alive with noise. Your heart, despite your mood, starts to race. The river starts to bend. You begin to trust your instinct. The smell of churned water fills the air. Panic sets in as the adrenaline injects itself into your veins.  You've got to start paddling. Hard. Hard! No time to strap everything down! You've been too neglegent, and now, there's only time to make sure you get through alive! Paddling hard! Paddling!

Paddling!

PADDLE!

...

...the fight is over. Time to assess what your laziness has cost you. You now know that, no matter how calm the river may be, you'll never lose your trust in its nature again.

THOUGHTS: A New Year, A Frequented Perspective

I had a few friends ask me what my resolutions for 2012 were going to be. Seeing what other friends had been saying about theirs, they seemed much simpler this year: family, work, success, etc. So when I thought about mine, my simple responce is "optimism".

I believe I've gone down this path numerous times, preaching the good gospel of how happiness cures your ailments, ad nauseum. They are very easy words to say, but so hard to actually trust. There was a point in my life where I considered happiness to be a fundemental part of my life. Everyone knew me as the happy guy, funny, kind, big hearted, etc... at least for a while. Then they'd find me to be a liar, or lacking follow through, or being nosey with gossip and inconsideration. It was a serious rock-bottom reality check to realize that I wasn't nearly as morally sound as I pretended to be.

Years later, through hard work and no work at aall, the outgoing and funny guy has all but vanished, replaced with waves of confident men, sad men, angry men, defeated men, happy men, quiet men, loud men, honest men... the list goes on, but the point is that when I stopped having faith in the happiness, in a way, I gave up hope for fixing everything else, and I didn't even realize it at the time.

Happiness isn't that complicated, as long as you're not afraid to experience the other side of that for what it is, and you're thankful for the experience. Fear, anger, sadness... they are feelings equal in worth to happiness, and when you allow yourself to cry, to yell, or run, you're truly unlocking the door for happiness to be there with you.

Don't be afraid to be afraid.

THOUGHTS: The Complexities of an Old Year

Here I am, whittlin away the last few hours of 2011, sitting in my kitchen, listening to Maserati, and blogging about complexities, of life, of friendship, of the afterlife, all the crazy stuff that happens between our births and our deaths. Pretty typical if you know who's blogging, I sppose.

This past saw many triumphs and setbacks. My family and I moved to Alaska! Triumph. We left a lot of stuff in Colorado. Setback. I didn't wind up in the Army! Triumph. I don't have any benifits. Setback. I'm making more money than I've ever made! Triumph! The cost of living here is easily double than Colorado. Setback.

I could go on and on, but the point is that it's tiresome to paint that sort of image in your head. The easiet thing to do is the hardest thing to do. Children have this "gift" that adults like to see as innocense. They see things for what they are and define them accordingly. When we become adults, that goes away. We make things more complex. For example, a kid sees a doggie. An adult sees a male German Sheperd/Black Lab mix. A kid sees a big truck! An adult sees a 1982 Ford F-350 with a 4" lift and 35s. A kid sees an airplane! An adult not only sees a 737-800 with an eskimo on the back, but goes even further to become opinionated about the name on the side. The kid says "you like her." The adult says "I do, but I can't say anything. It's inapprpriate. She and I have different things going on. I don't know how i'd even bring it up."

When the hell did we become dumber? At what point do we stop seeing things the way they are and start seeing them as this weird webs of a bunch of unrelated factors?

Everything has an essence of what it is. Trees. Trucks. People. People have that simplicity, too. See it. Work hard to work less to see it, and if you need a hand, ask someone under 5.

RADIO: The Monday After Christmas

Tonight, I'm excited to bring forth some El Ten Elven, Tortoise, and an awesome long song by Crippled Black Phoenix. This show is dedicated to my best friend who's going to make a tremendous journey starting Friday, moving back to Colorado. She's scared and brave at the same time, and I'm very proud of her for being strong. I'm sure you'll hear about it on the air, but check it out, and relax. Tell your kids to go to sleep. Digest the ham and turkey and enjoy the silence now that the inlaws are gone (hopefully). If they're not gone, tell them to go to sleep, too.

THOUGHTS: The Power of Music

I'm sampling my playlist for next Monday night's show. If you haven't tuned in yet, you should make an effort to stream it. Monday nights at 9 Alaskan Time. (That means for the few of you followers who live on the east coast, 1am Tuesday morning.) Lots of good music to help you fall asleep or just put you in the contemplative mood.

I was driven to name the show after my blog as I've found myself pondering and streaming constructive nonsense with much of this music as my soundtrack of sorts. Through the darkest thoughts and revelations to the grandest of adventures, this music has been there, opening up my head and my soul, and helping me to receive not only divine inspiration, but to accept difficult truths about myself.

Growing up, my dad would frequently play the grand piano in the front room. A fan of classical music, he played pieces that were very complex, yet, somehow, very expanding of the mental box. When you consider the intellectual clout necessary at the time to map out with dots and lines how an entire orchestra of instruments is going to portray a certain thought you have, it makes you (in most cases) nothing short of a genius. With piano, it's even more the case as an instrumentalist as, with a single tool, you're given the task of conveying that orchestra's message to the listener.

Suffice to say, when I was young, I was blessed with having this wealth of knowledge poured into my head through my ears. Not knowledge as it's typically understood from books and school, but knowledge in it's most raw form, the knowledge of how someone felt at a certain point in their life, a knowledge whose meaning excedes the capacity of vocabulary.

I've tried very hard to keep my ears open to this special language as I grow, but every adult in some way accidentally figures out how to lose their innocent penchant for simple absorbsion of feeling. What once was love or hurt or happiness becomes a tangled and twisted mess, usually including words like "complicated" or "confusing" or "misunderstood". The farther we get from our childlike compulsions of simply knowing a thing because it exists, the harder it is for us to understand that thing as adults.

I've found music to be a tremendous tool in pushing my nervous and wary psyche back towards that innocence. Through music, I'm driven to tears or excitement simply because somebody who I never met told me so without words. With music, I am re-learning the most basic things, what rocks are, what cold is, what wet is, what yucky is. What God is. Why becomes less important with music, for the simple fact that it exists should be all we ever need to fully accept it and understand it.

Keep your ears open, for they'll take your visions, your touches, and drag them with your sounds directly to your hungry soul, and when they get there, smile. You'll understand.