30 days: artist vs. technician

If I may greatly over-generalize for a moment. There are technicians, and then, there are artists. Neither is superior to the other, but their natural capabilities and methods for consuming their environments (and producing) are vastly different.

You can count on a technician to behave more consistently than you can an artist. It would be in err to give a technician something and expect to get something vastly greater in return. It would also be in err to expect anything in return from an artist; however, there is the possibility that what an artist does produce is nothing short of incredible: boundary re-defining.

The true artist's ongoing pursuit of the finest, of true beauty, often leaves them feeling lacking and confused: if they do not have, or have to their expectations, there is something missing. And like any true artist, the expectations are always growing, always growing. In a way it's sort of an unattainable path, like the rabbit in front of the derby horse. But it's that melancholy that makes life feel "alive".

Some people do not question their existence in the same way, and thusly don't need such melancholy to feel secure or normalized; they only find it a bother. I think this is a more practical train of thought.

Is it so simple that we can all be broken into these two categories? Or in various ways are we simultaneously both? Is it possible to break sides and move from one to the other, or, are we hopelessly at the whim of God?

Clarity and goals... neither of which I am used to having. This is wonderful.

I don't think anyone, myself included, anticipated it, but I think that's one of the best things about life is getting a feeling and just rolling with it. It's starting to look like one of the best decisions I've ever made, even if it means giving up a lot of the comfort I've earned for myself here... but comfort can breed complacency, so I'm over it.

36 days: whiteout

I wake up around 2 PM in my sleeping bag on the bamboo floor of my apartment, and through these giant floor-to-ceiling windows I'm totally overwhelmed by the sky—nothing but pure, shining clouds covering the space outside. Even for Portland it seems unorthodox; it's way too bright; it's awkward.

I feel a twinge of fear inside.

Now, I'm no stranger to waking up with a "twinge of fear", perhaps the theme of my life for many years—but this is not that feeling. I can no longer attribute it to my screw-ups. It's only been 24 hours or so, but based on every single thing I've learned over the past few years, this is the rightest direction I've ever been in. I finally have the means and a clear path to clean up my mess, and I'm going to do it in just a few months...?

I grab my laptop and sit cross-legged on my sleeping bag among a pile of luggage and clothes, looking out over downtown to the south and toward the cloud-swallowed hills. I don't even have an Internet connection at this apartment anymore; just a wireless card. In fact it was exactly this way even weeks and weeks ago; I just didn't see it then.

... slowly it comes to me. This is that feeling I was fearing when I set out to un-capsize a couple years back. It's getting to be that time where my book isn't writing itself anymore. I'm leaving all pre-defined paths, and now I'm forced to write it.

In western society (or, maybe modern society is more appropriate) you go to school, get a job, earn a retirement, etc—and what I'm "throwing away" is a lot of things that a lot of other people desperately wish they had. I'm deliberate in what I'm doing, but it's still hard to swallow.

These clouds are so bright. It reminds me of when I was a kid... My grandmother, when she would make a mistake on the typewriter, she would grab this little bottle of whiteout and brush over the mistake... like it had never existed

37 days: an opportunity

Much like my decision last year to move to Asia changed the way I thought about everything, the opportunity itself changes everything all over again.

With some careful thought over french press this morning...

ok, yes i could leave now, and i'd probably be fine.

but what if i dropped all of my expenses to near nothing, and was more focused at work than ever for an extra three months. could i basically solve all of my problems, before i fly off the face of the earth?

The experience of grasping a real opportunity is invigorating. Dropping everything everyone else told you you wanted for some set of principals you actually really care about.

It's the possibility of something actually new, no matter how many days it takes...

This morning I took a piece of graph paper out of my portfolio, and proudly in all uppercase letters, declared my intent to leave my dream apartment, without a second thought as to what I was going to do next.

39 days: regrets

Yeah, I have regrets. I mean, I do wish that I had asked Adidas for an overseas job, you know, or something like that, back when I could have done that sort of thing.

But it's just too late now.

41 days

I got off after 15-some hours of plane rides at noon yesterday, and didn't sleep all night. There's too much to think about.