I have made my decision

This will come in phases.


Step One:

Listen to this song. It was given to me by a friend recently. It will be the background music to my decision. The lyrics are mildly important... but don't try and interpret them verbatim. That would just be silly :-)

http://www.box.net/shared/j3s5z7pg6x

Brillance

This excites me... though mathematics brings me no more excitement than any other subject... but perhaps that is the point.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram.html

some explain, others offer hope

<< DISCLAIMER - Please dont read this post unless you can read it all the way through... I tend to skim quotes, but there is a reason I picked these. >>

My thoughts:
“It's not enough to have a dream unless I'm willing to pursue it. It's not enough to know what's right unless I'm strong enough to do it. It's not enough to join the crowd, to be acknowledged and accepted. I must be true to my ideals, even if I'm excluded and rejected. It's not enough to learn the truth unless I also learn to live it. It's not enough to reach for love unless I care enough to give it.”

And yet, I still know:
“To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”

A friend recently reminded me:
“To dream of a person you would like to be is to waste the person you are”

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

From one of my favorite movies:
"Only in their dreams can men be truly free. Twas always thus, and always thus will be."

I need people to tell me this:
“If the dream is big enough the facts don't matter”

This is beautiful to me:
“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”

************************************************************

You are right oh great world of internet friends. A few of you have hit my nail on the head. I am tired, and quickly reaching exhaustion. I am not effectively walking in my purpose right now. I know this, and yet, other than run away, what would you have me to do? I cant identify without isolating myself, and I cant even begin to talk with anyone about all this madness without risking my own stake of sanity... as if there were even people left I could talk to.... I have become scarily familiar with letting go, and at this point, I am just hoping that it is God who has the reins, because right now, I am letting go of it all. I am just not capable, of anything other than misery without some serious perfect divine intervention.

Other than idling, what should I do? Or is there an inherent flaw in that question that explains all of this? Anyone.

"it"

The it of which I last spoke... was directly referring to a conversation I had with a friend about a significant life change I am in the process of. Apparently there are things in my life that are owning me instead of me owning them... More importantly, those things are getting in the way of my relationship with God, as well as my relationships with friends...s I have to some end been more focused on my happiness and those goals than on simply thanking and serving God. The process/ life-change of which I speak is my current journey for which to change that. Specifically, I strongly want a wife, family, career, and fully-knowable end purpose. However, as it seems, I want those things even more than I desire the truth of God to penetrate my own life. To that end, I have been found selfish, and so a change is now necessary. A change where in I am no longer self-centered, but rather, focused on the world around me and the God above me. Even if I dont want to. Or rather, especially when I dont want to be. At this point, I am learning to trust God more than myself, my hopes, and my dreams.

It is hard. I feel as though I am becoming more familiar with "letting go" than I ever was familiar with "holding on". I do not like it many times, but I know that it is necessary, as this season in my life. Even though there are so many seemingly legitimate things that I want out of life, I still know that ultimatly, God's desires must come first.

Right now, I am giving up on trying so hard at everything. From now on, I will only be giving effort to the things that God asks of me. Everything else, all other work done because I thought it was necessary... is just in vain.

I have let go of a really close friend. I did not want to, but God saw it fit that I did. We agreed it was the best decision. It hurts me to do this. I do not like this constant isolation and aloneness. But, God has a bigger plan, I am sure.

And that is all.

...

And so it begins.....

Quote of the day

"Do not let your spark go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."

Ayn Rand, 'Atlas Shrugged'

My anthem

To keep myself going these last two moths, my phrase has been...


"It just isn't bad enough to quit... It just isn't enough to break."


Interesting... huh?

life v2.9

As of late, I have tried many times conveying where I am in life right now.

Here is my latest attempt, as expressed in a recent email to a friend:

I am still deciding if I want to go back to college. Or, more importantly, where I would even go back to. I will not go back to college just to be at A college.... so, now I need to find a place that would be worth spending the next two years of my life there. Right now, the mountains or the beach sounds nice. I still dont much care what degree I get. I just want to study things that interest me, do some reading and writing, and develop some friendships. It is weird, the few friendships I have right now are really what keeps me going during the day. I write letters a few time a week, and I usually do it during my "off" time. I am still against just veging. This weekend, I cut up a few trees and wrote letters to friends. It was a nice weekend. Though, it would have been nicer if I would have been around real people.

Right now, I really feel like I have been thrown in the purification fires. For the last several months, I have really felt horrible, almost every day. For the last three weeks, I have just been trying to keep my sanity/ emotional stability. I think God wants to teach me something here. I look forward to growing, though, right now, it doesn't feel very good.

That is where I am in life. Candid and unashamed. I am growing, and yes, it is quite painful :-)

So... yea. Does anybody have any suggestions for where I should go to college... and why?

-Zac

Me in a nutshell

Your Score: Logical Female

You are a logical female. Males in this category are a little bit on the rarer side, but stand out. You are fairly easygoing and often question the world around you, and yourself. You don’t usually take arguments personally and like your breathing room. This may be mistaken for a lack of assertiveness, but you are actually surprisingly stubborn. Unfortunately, while you can sniff out motives and make cognitive leaps with your intuition rather easily, it may fail you in the realm of the heart. This may cause others to believe you to be cold and distant, when in fact you are simply bewildered. As a male, you are perceived as witty and confident, though also probably a huge nerd, which may alienate some women. Your best match is another Logical Female.

Colorado

Today, I am in Colorado, and I am happy.

Though perhaps I will never have a conventional, understandable life, what I do have right now is great, and I am going to work on appreciating it more / realizing just how amazing the opportunities around me are.

Life is good, and I am excited :-)

Bad mood

I think my perpetual bad mood might be fed by the following:

1) Lack of physically present social network
2) I might be dealing with the failing of both of my last relationships at the same time... ie: I never really dealt with the actual total termination, and all relevant implications, of either of the last two relationships I terminated.
3) I am working my tail off, and I am having trouble seeing an attainable goal for my work.
4) I am not in a relationship. And yes, I know being alone can be good. And I am all up for that... However, I know that I was made with the intention of starting my own family... and I would like to do that.
5) I am entirely too introverted right now... not just about my own thoughts and feelings... but I am just not feeding into/ talking to other people as often as I should. When I stop focusing on people outside of myself, I tend to get into a bad mood.
6) Something really good is coming, and right now I am receiving massive preemptive attacks by the enemy in hopes of dissuading me from my rightful future.

Some of the things I need to do to fix this:
1) Follow the suggest of friends, and start preparing myself for my future, which would include:
a) Working out and eating regularly, not for appearance so much as just being healthy.
b) Get outisde of my bubble of sorrow and start living a happier life
c) Read as often as I should, and include the Bible in my readings
d) Pattern my life after the example of Christ, and learn how to be a REAL Christian
2) I am trying to develop a few pen-pals, and that seems to be working out nicely. It is good to have friends that are far away.
3) My father signed me up for an online dating/friendship service... and while I am not sure that is helping so much as just making me laugh, it should be added to this side of things I am doing :-)
4) I am trying to be a good brother to my sisters and son to my parents.

I have my steps, now I just need some motivation... or a girlfriend... so I can run away from my problems and into her comforting arms :-)

My Current Soundtrack

I dont even understand anymore. Maybe that is step one in life getting better. I just dont understand. I feel like my heart is full of sand. And, it is not just one of those days or even weeks where I feel bad. This just keeps going and going for months now. I am sure it will get better at some point. But for now, this song is in my head:




A hundred days had made me older since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lights had made me colder and I dont think I can look at this the same
But all the miles had separate
They disappeared now when Im dreaming of your face

Im here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
Im here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight its only you and me

The miles just keep rolling as the people leave their way to say hello
I've heard this life is overrated but I hope that it gets better as we go

Im here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
Im here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl its only you and me

Everything I know, and anywhere I go
it gets hard but it wont take away my love
And when the last one falls, when its all said and done
it gets hard but it wont take away my love

Im here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
Im here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl its only you and me

Im here without you baby but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
Im here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
but tonight girl its only you and me

Online Profile Test

A General Description of How You Approach New Information and Experiences:

You think like an artist. Or better, you SEE like an artist. While most people look at life's straight lines, its height and depth and width, you're bending the lines with your imagination and turning black and white into shades of blue and yellow. And in conversations at work or with your friends you want to ask, "Do you see what I see?" A few might, most don't, but you've piqued everyone's curiosity with your own original and inventive ways of thinking.

You can, if you must, think in conventional ways. But left on your own, you'll usually opt for the eccentric or avant-garde; in fact you're usually bored with what everyone else is comfortable with. You learn from reading, talking, watching people and other fauna and flora, and simply sitting in the soft chair of your mind and wondering how people would learn how to count if they could only use uneven numbers. You are out in front of conventional ideas, bravely originally defining true and false, right and wrong, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Negative Reactions Others May Have Toward Your Style of Thinking:

You drive through life faster than the speed limit, and when you hit speed bumps, and you hit a lot of them with your mind distracted from the straight line ahead your wheels leave the ground.

For people who like life at a safer speed, you move too fast and lose touch too often with the solid ground they prefer, hence their discomfort with you. As odd as you might find this, many people feel safe in the shelter of the world they already know. They like the familiar. They breathe easily and sleep deeply knowing with more certainty how the world works. So although they might enjoy your company and be curious about your latest notion of how to count backwards by threes, they can only take you in small doses. And they wish you'd quit trying to push the boundaries of their personal and social cosmos.

Positive Responses Others May Have Toward You:

Even those whom you make uncomfortable know, as just about everyone does, that you're not a flake. You think well, and even your wildest fancies have their roots in the deep soil of sound ideas and tested beliefs. So even if some people don't want to drive at high speed with you, they will respect you for your courage as an innovative and unconventional thinker. You lend color and imagination to what would otherwise be the straight black and white lines of their work world and social environments.

A few more daring people of your circle might even learn from you to take a risk they would otherwise never consider. As comfortable as they are on solid ground, they may be curious about what it would be like to go faster than the speed limit, or paint the living room two shades of blue, or question ideas or beliefs they've fingered like sacred beads since they were children.

After all, they watch you do it, and you seem no worse for the risks you take. In fact, your eyes are wider and your breath quicker, and maybe they can find at least a bit of this for themselves. To be certain, they don't want their wheels to leave the ground, but maybe the next time they approach a speed bump they might just brace themselves and speed up just a little bit.

Quick post

I do not have time for this post... but a few quick thoughts before they leave my head.

I do not want to understand girls. I have no desire to predict them or understand them. Honestly, I just want to observe. Sure, in time, I am sure I will find patterns and predicables, but I have no desire to cramp them into those.

I think that being around a girl should be like listening to a good poem. I want to be able to just sit there and breathe it all in.

I think I have been treating girls like guys, trying to make them logical and comprehendable... when, honestly, that is just ridiculous.

Lastly, I want to move out of my house.... SOON!

Welcome to my inner circle

Sorry, but this is more of a diary entry than a quasi-public post... anywho, here it goes. Welcome to the inter-musings of my mind in the last hour. To set the stage, I have been mowing all today which = thinking... and I read the first four chapters of my most recent book addiction, Atonement by Ian McEwan.

So, I have been giving some thought to the next several years of my life. At first, I thought about jobs... but then I got bored of those thoughts. So, instead of working forward, I started thinking backward. Sounds clever... maybe predictable. Really, it was probably just out of boredom. Anywho, here is what I was thinking.

For me to find a job, a career... or any sort of direction, the general rule is to follow my heart. I mean, different people have different ways of approaching this... but I prefer the old-fashioned... follow your heart way of doing thing... and so, here is my heart:

If I was given the full hook-ups in life... win the lotto, given $1 billion, whatever... either way, it is an interesting fictional scenario to go through. Well, my first reaction is: I would like to live in Colorado, I would build a house up in the mountains that came off as a meek cabin.. but had a huge underground basement that was decked out with everything you would want in a dream house (maybe a metaphorical representation of my desired projected image). I have like a thousand different ideas for things I would want in a house (which makes me think I might like building hotels or custom houses...) Okay, so I would be in Colorado with a sweet house. I would have a big underground garage, like a bat-cave where I would build cool cars and keep my gadgets... like batman. Then, I would want to get involved in the world market. Go to the swag parties, re-invest in real estate, various tech. companies, etc. And, just like Batman... all of those monies made would go towards rebuilding cities, schools, communities, etc. (By the way, I want to start schools my way, and I have all these sweet ideas for that too) As for the connections made, I would hope to rub-off my ideals on others. So, that would be my dream...

However, there is a hitch. All of this really would probably numb me if I was to do it alone. But, I will save the "perfect woman" speech for later... thought, it is an important part of the whole fantasy.

So, here are my next thoughts. What should I do right now? Think about my present desires... well, those change. Today, I would like to retreat into the woods with a sweet girl, a good book, and some paper to write something worth reading. Next week, I will probably be obsessed with rebuilding my remote-control car. It is just how my personality seems to work. I am a very "passionate" person so to speak... I find some project, or passion, and I prefer to commit myself fully to it until it is "complete" in my eyes. I have rebuilt a car, designed a few websites, built a few computers, built ramps, various gadgets... you get the idea. Take my current job. I spent the first week (before I started working) just cleaning the office... it was project, and I loved it. Then, I published two books, then built a website... and dug a drainage ditch outside our house because I thought a soggy area was interfering with my mowing. To be honest, I just like these things. Projects, things that require my brain, my sweat, my hands, and my heart. I like putting myself into something and making something better. I always have.

The schools told me that makes me an engineer, I have looked into web-designer, mechanical engineer, and all these other tasks associated with "doing" projects. But, every time, it turns out that there is always a type of person, who, when they specialize in that area, is better than me. Now,I am not talking about just one person, I am talking about an entire type of person. I can be a really good web-designer. I could be a really good engineer. But, I know that I want more than that. And right now, the thing that I am "great" at, is just being really good at a lot of things.

Here is how I see my life. Whatever I commit myself to, I can be fairly good at. But every time, once it is complete, I need a new challenge. Now, there are some weird twists to this because aside from physical projects, I usually only do everything at 95%. Which, to many, is great, but always leaves me wanting. I would like to do everything at 100% But in all honest, I know that would kill me. I guess I am looking for what everyone else is looking for, that groove, that nitch, that zone of operation that only I could do well in. Maybe that is an egocentric approach to it all, but it is how I view things right now.

For the longest time, I have had this fixation with superhero's like Batman and Superman. I embrace them like they are ideals of my own life. I love this show "Smallville" because it is Superman growing up. Everytime I watch it, I get hope. Hope that maybe one day I can step into my calling like he steps into his. Luckily, the character in Smallville has constant struggles with his powers, not understanding or appreciating them. In correlation, I have hope that I am doing the same. Right now I am going through a lot of rough things. I just hope that they are helping to prepare me for later and that I am not just making one mistake after another.

In short, I just want to know that I am on the right path in life. I would like to go to college, but I am afraid that I would just go back for my comfort zone. I dont like going back to something for comfort. It doesn't usually work out well.

So, my resultant conclusion. Tomorrow, I wake up, thank God, and work hard. The End.