create

The people getting the attention, deservedly, have something to show for it. They have a tangible product of their efforts. I do not, and if I want to move forward, that has to change.

Wether it's a truly great website, an interactive piece, film, album, or book, it doesn't really matter to me. I have enough to express now; I just need be diligent and do it.

I have to become an artist.

Part of this living out 100% concept (which I need to coin a new term for) is that when, through observation, you recognize you could be doing something better, you figure out a way to do it better, rather than getting down about the fact that you aren't already doing it better.

I should be very happy when I discover I'm not doing something as well as I could be, simply because I've discovered it... That is a new opportunity for me to improve as a human being.

There's no way for us to change the past, but there is something we can do to affect our future.

fanaticism realized

Since Tuesday I have begun to build a much deeper appreciation for giving that 100% in every task I take on, in every aspect of life. Life has been more rich than I can ever recall, and yet it's only the beginning.

Earlier today I was scribbling around in my portfolio, and I wrote
KEEP BREATHING   YOU ARE SO CLOSE

What lies hold us back from what God wants for us?

I had the song "Woman in Chains" stuck in my head much of the afternoon and so I decided to do a little homework on its underlying meaning. I found this interview that reveals, if nothing else, how deeply Roland Orzabal was thinking and exploring when he wrote these songs, which in turn helps me understand perhaps why I'm so fascinated by them.



The album took years and millions of dollars to create. As the old adage goes, you get what you pay for.

fanaticism

I didn't really know what to do with all the weight I felt after I watched the iPhone 4 keynote.

At least, I myself could not sit and be unaffected emotionally by this work of art, this tool that possesses so much raw power to enrich lives and bridge gaps between human beings. Having even the slightest idea of what kind of depths these guys has to dig down inside of themselves to do what they did, to be completely fanatically good and thorough because they could, because they wanted to, or because they even felt like they needed to... made it even more difficult for me to consume. The iPhone 4 is a bewildering product of unbridled passion, a product of the same raw heart and raw potential that serves as the fundamental reason of God-devised humanity. It terrified me.

I had to stop for a moment and take a walk. I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed for the park.

Something inside of me was down as I walked among these beautiful trees in perfect weather. I watched the college students roam to and fro, bags in hand, simply enjoying the absence of rain and the light breeze; hopefully not contemplating too deeply what was the meaning of life or of passion, but simply enjoying the present time for what it was.

I started to feel sick and realized I needed to eat some food, so I planted myself in the corner of a burrito place next to the window.

About halfway into my meal, this beautiful girl appeared outside, and as she walked by we took brief notice of each other for a moment. I wondered to myself what she saw. It seemed fairly obvious to me; a young man who eating a burrito in a corner of a restaurant alone. A young man who seemingly wasn't living life as passionately as he could have been. And less than 100% is, quite simply, less than 100%. In this condition, how could I ever hope to attract a normal and beautiful girl?

Something inside me whispered a bit of truth. It was completely and utterly up to me wether or not I used every amount of potential I was given; wether or not I was in fact going to be the bewildering product of unbridled passion that God designed me to be.

Every moment of every day, it is, a decision.

spare time

Life is strange. Things are changing all the time, but then sort of not at all. A life changes completely and then changes right back to where it started. Everything is new but also completely cyclical.

And here I am sitting at the end of something and the beginning of something else, having achieved most if not all of everything that I wanted to achieve when I was younger (dismissing what I haven't "achieved" through realization of its lack of place or necessity in my life), and I'm not sure so much anymore what I want or need.

I feel very blessed; this is a good place to be.

But with this blessing comes enormous responsibility. I've been granted time. What do I choose to do with it?