sometimes words trickle through my mind and, a willing slave to my subconscious, I line them up and write them down.

I like to sit in a room made of my thoughts and ponder the questions that echo back and forth, that bounce off the walls of my brain. I drown myself in the dreamland in my head and choke on the heavy ideas that linger there.  I engulf myself with wonder and awe, tease myself with curiosity. I aspire, I desire, I hunt down knowledge like a starving wolf and revel in the both the chase and the satisfaction of a kill. And the more I know, the more I need; I crave it with a passion, yearn for that fire in my veins. There is no stopping, I am past the point of no return - this addiction is for life. I picture realities beyond our own, I will fix the world. A picture is worth a thousand words, but the painter of this portrait will never stop moving his brush. We live in a Never Ending Story but we can edit the plot as we go along. To control the past is to control the future; but we have no control of either. We are blind mice and no one knows which is a trap and where is the safe food. All we can do is guess and as we guess our way blindly we realize how little we truly know. There is a constant conflict inside my mind as I lust for untold stories, and yet must accept humbly that I can only ever understand such a small amount of that is happening around me. No one knows everything, except maybe the Gods, and even they are debatable.

I wish my bedroom was in a basement so I could say I'm Planning World Domination in My Basement but it isn't so I can't say that and anways I'm not really planning world domination just thinking about LIFE N STUFF but I Feel Like A Rebel so This Sentence has no punk-tuation also I like how this title is longer than my blog post because it adds an element of random and I appreciate random

I want to do everything and anything but sometimes do nothing at all.
I want to travel the world and build a home base.
I want to eat inedible foods for breakfast, exotic meals for lunch, and cook delicious dinners at home.
I want to live selfishly while helping others.
I want to see the world and explore the inside of my head.
I want to be respected by my cat and best friends with my kids.

Life is exciting.

The Gift of Sharing

Priiivacy. It's not really something a lot of us take seriously - we have our facebook accounts, our friends. We like to gossip and have attention and all of that.

It's a little ironic to write a public blog post about this, but my blog is just for that: my thoughts. I don't mind if my opinions on general subjects are broadcasted - in fact, I would like them to be. My private thoughts? Those are different.

I keep a journal. A diary. Whatever you want to call it - a little book I write in daily about life, my thoughts and problems. See, there's always a dilemma. If I have a problem, the best way to deal with it is get it out in the open. However, I don't want to go around telling people! My best friend lives in White Rock and we rant together for hours, but what goes on in Powell River isn't really anything I can talk to her about. I have a boyfriend, but I don't want to rant to him about all the annoying little things, and I'm sure he doesn't want to hear them, either. I don't want to spread gossip - if I argue with someone, that's between me and them. No one else is involved.

So basically, I've got issues I need to talk about, but don't want to tell anyone. So I tell myself! And it works, too. I love my journal.

You, the reader, on the internet - some anonymous person, perhaps one of my friends (probably one of my friends) don't need to know my personal life. You've probably noticed that I don't put much about it on here, except maybe the occasional reference to a situation that supports whatever I am talking about. I don't want the great wide web reading about MY life.

A lot of people have difficulty understanding this, I think. For a lot of people, "privacy" is useless. They got a problem; they want sympathy, they want attention. Not everyone, of course. But some people - "Oh yeah, I'm going on anti-depressants soon." "Well, I think I may be pregnant." Or, the worst of all - "don't tell anyone, but I did this last night..."

I don't get it. How can people stand exposing themselves like that? I don't have a lot of secrets, but I'm not about to volunteer all of my darkest, most personal facts in the off chance that they'll make someone pay attention to me. Even if it would double the views on my blog.

Sure, certain people know a lot about my life. Maybe about three. My best friends.

I'm not totally sure where I'm going with this. Following the flow, I guess.

People are always surprised when I refuse to show them what's in my journal. To me, it makes perfect sense - why would I be writing it down, if I was just going to share it with them after? Even if I were to write a book about my life, it wouldn't contain details like how I feel about blank and blank's newly forming relationship, or what I argued about with my boyfriend yesterday. That isn't anyone's business - and why would anyone even care?

I think privacy is precious. It's hard to maintain, but rewarding - it's nice to have parts of your life that aren't common knowledge. Sharing is a gift, and not one that should be casually handed out.

I get my highs in the piercing parlors.

I love body art. Tattoos and piercings, oh my! I love them, they're just fascinating. My boyfriend is going to start hating on this post from the first sentence.

"Why do you do that to yourself, Rowan?" He hates them. It's unecessary, he says. Stupid and dangerous.

I can't explain it to him, either. How can he ever understand it, when he finds them repulsive?

The pain isn't important. It's all adrenaline. Sure, it hurts a little, but what does that matter? It's a pinch, over in a second. Hey, I had a big brother - physical pain isn't a big deal to me. A piercing is nothing after years of nougies and indian burns and oh god, those wretched years when he was in karate! To be honest, I kind of enjoy the process. There's this fear before: is it going to be painful? But then you overcome yourself, you force yourself into that chair and sit still while they pick out the needle.

I think that's what I really love about getting pierced. It's empowering, to face your own fear and beat it. You know it's going to hurt, you don't know how badly (it's never as bad as you expect). Forcing yourself to accept pain is a crazy adrenaline rush. Afterwards, you feel ready for anything.

My boyfriend doesn't face pain the same way I do. He doesn't understand the exhilaration, and when he reads this post, he still won't understand. In fact, most of you won't, because adrenaline is an animal thing and not something you can understand from reading.

Then there's the second part of a piercing: what you leave with. You'd edited yourself - you're going to be a little different for the rest of your life. I have my nose pierced - my septum, actually. I have to hide it when I visit my grandmother, and in all honesty, I don't feel like I'm looking at my own face when I can't see it. Even after you take them out, that little scar is forever. It says "hey, I had an experience".

I get my highs in the tattoo parlor. Why do you think piercings are so addictive?

Of course, it can't be that simple. Every new piercing, there's always someone putting it down. I get the same with my hair, with my clothes. I've learned to mostly ignore it, but it still bugs me a little. I don't see why people think it's their business what's sticking out of my face or what color my hair is.

I certainly don't make other people's appearence my business. I'll ooh and ahh over a new hairdo, and maybe nag my boyfriend every now and then to grow out his hair (heeelllo, sexy ponytail?) but his reluctance doesn't really matter. We're all individuals; we should have the right to dress like individuals. If you don't like to dress up, that's just an extension of your personality - just like my flashy colors are an extension of my personality.

We all say it's so horrible that people follow trends and look "like clones" , but for some reason people never follow through. "Oh, Rowan! You're so great and unique... but you should grow your hair long and dye it a natural color." Despite all of the talk of "being yourself", no one feels comfortable letting lose. 

I don't mean that everyone has to dress like me. In fact, please don't. Please dress like yourself. If that means sneakers from Wal-mart that's cool, or $300 high tops, that's cool too. Learn not to judge - don't even judge the judgmental, because they're people too.

And WHATEVER you do, think of this: people who worry about what other people do, generally don't have enough to do themselves.

Living in Sin

There are two ways to be socially acceptable.

Only do things that are acceptable to those surrounding you; or only surround yourself with people who think the things you do are acceptable.

Naturally, I follow the second. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm the obnoxious sort that does pretty much what ever she wants.

I'm too imperfect to pretend that I am. I'm prideful, and insecure. I'm immature, and crude. I'm all those things your mother told you not to be. In fact, everyone is. We're all prideful, we're all insecure. We're all immature, and we all have a crude side. Some of us are better at pretending we aren't than others are. It's an art, the art of perfection; the art of pretending you aren't really human.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis tells us that pride is an ultimate sin, the one thing that no Christian would ever admit to. As much as I love C.S. Lewis, I think that's incredibly foolish. Pride is one of the basic things that we as humans live on. It's the greatest motivator we have. Of course, it can lead to a lot of bad things - overly large doses of pride have caused a lot of the biggest disasters the world has faced.

However, in moderate amounts, pride is good for us. We all take pride in some things, and that pride encourages us to take them somewhere. Pride in skills at math, pride in playing hockey. Pride in achievement. And then there's the kind of pride that encourages others to go places - pride in someone else's accomplishments will be beneficial to them, too.

I disagree with the idea of modesty - and by this, I mean false modesty. (In reality, there isn't much real modesty around. If you are confident in yourself and don't feel the need to share your accomplishments, that's great.) Maybe because I can't really grasp it. It doesn't make sense to me to pretend to be any less than  you are. I think that modesty is just a defense against jealousy - if you pretend you don't have anything to be jealous of, no one will be jealous of you.

Psshaaw. If other people struggle with jealousy, that is their problem. Part of growing up is learning to appreciate other people's attributes without letting yourself feel lesser. I'm surrounded by people who are smarter than me, more talented, more creative, harder workers... and yes, some days I feel really insecure. However, if you don't feel good enough, the best solution is to IMPROVE YOURSELF! I'm jealous of my friends' talents, but rather then letting th at be a negative aspect to our relationship, I work on my own talents.

I think we, as humans, focus too much on not being human. To be human is to have both good traits and bad traits. I'm not saying it's okay to let the bad ones take over your life; everything in moderation. However, it's not bad to be human! Be kind, but take time to be selfish. There's nothing wrong with taking care of yourself. Appreciate others' work, but take pride in your own. Be mature, but don't be afraid to let loose (and make that really bad sexual joke you've been thinking but are too afraid to say) every now and then. Be gentle but stand up for yourself.

No one is flawless. We like to pretend we are, or at least have the potential to be - but we don't.

Perfection is being imperfect, and loving it.

Happiness

I identify myself as a very happy person. Obviously, or you'd be reading a lot more of those "fmylife it suckz so bad" posts. And then you wouldn't read them at all...

Anyways, in Psychology today, we watched an interview with Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher and author. His idea was that we "are not our minds", that "our minds are our worst enemies". "Your mind", he says, "takes over the real you and creates thoughts that make you miserable."

I'm not totally sure I agree. I am, as you know if you read my last blog, a stone-hard athiest. I like to be open-minded, of course, but at the core of my beliefs I believe in what is biological. Our minds are a part of us. I think what Tolle is getting at is our subconscious and our conscious selves. Consciously thinking negative thoughts WILL affect your subconscious. If you think things that are negative consciously, you eventually subconsciously believe them.

It's all about patterns. There are different ways of thinking. Something I think that leads to misery is social expectations.

Let's talk about social dynamics. We all know what high school is like - I'm using high school as an example because it's the situation I am most familiar with. I know that social dynamics continue into workplaces etc, or in some places entire towns. (cough, Powell River, cough.) Anyways, in high school. We have our popular kids, our stoners and our various kinds of social outcasts, and we have those boring kids in the middle that never quite make it into the popular group but are too NORMAL to be any kind of outcast.

I have a theory about social dynamics. Let's start with our popular kids: they're all fucked up. That was not needless profanity. I'm generalizing, I know; there are exceptions. And some of them are just so rich that they manage to fit in - which is our "preppy" group.

But being "fucked up", having some kind of major issue in your life, your mind, your childhood - that's "cool". People respect you. Haven't you noticed that all of us "boring" kids - the nerds, the losers, the ones who just happen to not have anything interesting about them - we're the ones who grow up in middle class homes with loving, supportive parents and wholesome childhoods. Some of us drink and do minor drugs, some of us don't.

And then there's the social outcast kids. I think a lot of them catch on to the fact that "fucked up" is cool. Like the poser emo kids, the ones who are perfectly normal but will dress in dark clothes and write sad poetry.

Now, this is ALL theory. And there are a lot of exceptions. However, in a general sense, it's cool to have issues. The more messed up your life is, the more they love you! If you cope with your issues in unhealthy ways, they'll love you even more! Happy people are never cool. Happy people can be "cute" and "nice" and all that, happy people can be loved but they're never truly cool.

So, with all this pressure to be "cool" and miserable, people fool themselves into thinking our lives aren't that great. Ah! If only you were truly miserable, then all those other miserable people might accept you!

It doesn't work like that. If your life is truly messed up, you aren't going to appreciate some well-dressed fuck in a middle class home who gets  an allowance every week droning on about how "miserable" their lives are! I'm not badly off, but I despise people like that.

Back to patterns. We get used to thinking and saying stuff sucks, because that's what is cool.  You say that your life is bad often enough, you start to believe it. No one can change your mind - and you carry that with you for years and years. Sometimes, for the rest of your life. Ever see those overweight, miserable, middle aged women? THAT COULD BE YOU.

So it's time to change thinking patterns. Be happy with what you got - whatever you got. Even if the kid next door is so much richer, your friend is so much prettier, and you can't get a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Maybe the reason nothing good is happening to you is because you fail to see them coming your way.

Ignorance is Bliss

I've been thinking about the afterlife.

Everyone has a different theory. Mine, of course, is purely atheistic; we die. (If only my English teacher could see that use of a semi-colon! Oooh la la!) And then we turn into compost in a graveyard, although I think I would like to be buried somewhere else so that I can contribute to the ecosystem... flowers can use me for nutrients and stuff. Y'know. I don't believe in the afterlife. I just don't - I mean, we'll never find out until we're there, but I have no need to comfort myself with the dream that I'm going to be reunited with loved ones and stuff. Death is both horrific and blissful - there will be nothing to fear, when there is nothing at all.

What about other people's theories?

I watched a movie the other day called Waking Life. It lead to a conversation with a friend about dimensions, quantum physics, and all that other fun stuff. Something that came up was a book called Is There Life After Death (a book I started reading but could not stand, thanks to all the physics in the first chapter, but my friend loved). Anyways, in this movie Waking Life, there was a scene where they discussed the last few minutes your brain is alive, after your body dies - during which you (hypothetically) see your life flash before your eyes. "Flash" is used loosely - the idea is, that during those last few minutes, the brain relives every second of your life.

It starts getting complicated now. The idea is, what happens after you finish mentally reliving your life? Do you include in the process, those last few minutes of brain activity? If so, you could have a "dream inside a dream", where you are mentally reliving the life you just mentally relived, if that makes sense. If you agree with the theory that we all "live in our own dimension" - as in, each of us views the world from a separate dimension, which sounds sketchy but think about it - how do you know that everything that has happened in your life, isn't just a figment of your imagination?

Deep stuff. The kind of stuff it hurts to think about. Am I writing this - or have you, the reader, dreamed up both this blog post AND me, the writer?

That got a little off topic. Despite my boring, unromantic atheist views, I do enjoy pondering the ideas of separate dimensions, worlds just inside our heads - quantum physics and string theory. All that exciting stuff.

The best part, though? None of us know what the answer is - and none of us will know until we're dead, and it's too late to pass the information on!

Saturday Night Doodle

That's my saturday night doodle, which makes little to no sense and has a slightly retarded sun... but is up for interpretation. Oh well! I really like drawing cartoon flowers. :)

A non-existent problem, to fill up some cold winter days.

So... the winter depression hits. I hate cold. I can't stand it; I'm one of those people who are perfectly comfortable on a blazing hot day, but come late Novemer I don't leave the house without at least two pairs of pants. I tend to be a little seasonal in that miserable weather makes me, well, miserable.

This morning started like most winter mornings, which is to say I got up and hated the world. That sounds a little harsh. I woke up and hated the fact that the world is COLD! I'm a morning person but not when even taking off the blankets is painful. And then the bus ride to school - too cold to be social, so I wrap up and try to sleep. I find that warmth has a loooot to do with my mood.

Yesterday was okay. I persuaded my lovely boyfriend (who lives conveniently close to the school) that it would be a good day to hang out at his place (where I could bundle up in blankets, huddle for warmth, and fall asleep!) Today I'm not so lucky. He's off getting his N and even if he was here, we would attend class anyways.

So anyways... my point. I'm generally a pretty happy, but this cold gets me so down. Generally, I deal with my seasonal moodiness pretty well. I'm not fond of sharing my problems (except on this blog, which everyone in the world can read?) and I can usually take care of myself.

But then... I got a boyfriend. I think boyfriends are like hack codes for when you're sad. Instead of the hours of consuming chocolate, candy, fantasy books, starchy foods and World of Warcraft while I hide from society... I told him I felt down because of the cold, and he cheered me up. Seriously, it took less than five minutes. I felt kind of like I was cheating the system.

And that's my question for today, kids. IS it cheating? I didn't have to think about my emotions or have my cry or really any of the usual process. Does accepting this kind of comfort going to cause me to have a dependence on it? Or should I only really worry about that if he starts solving ALL my problems for me - I mean, there isn't really any way to deal with seasonal depression, except maybe a trip to Hawaii. So I'm probably just worrying about a non-existent issue.

Don't get me wrong, I quite like having a nice cuddly boyfriend to cheer me up. I think what worries me is the loss of independence. I like being able to take care of myself. I think the hard part, in any kind of relationship, friends or lovers or even family - the hard part is finding the line between too much dependence and too much independence. Having a social life is incredibly important, even if its just one or two friends and family members you see. No one can take on the world all by themselves. The other end of the spectrum is making someone your everything - not being able to do anything without them!

I felt kind of silly today because I was down and wanted to have my instant-pick-me-upper around, but on the other hand, I would have been down if I hadn't been missing him, anyways. Probably, I'm thinking, I don't have to worry about having too much dependence as much as I have to worry about not being able to give up independence. Here's to learning how to open up - and finding that fine line between not enough and too much.

Sup doods, it's next year!

Well, people have been telling me to write. I've been trying to ignore them, since I'm lazy n all that, but they just keep persisting. The last straw was Bugworlds, aka Alex, who informed me that I haven't updated in foreeeevvvveeer. Since I have nothing better to do, I guess its about time to do that.

Lately I seem to have a double life. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? I like to think it is. I spent my winter break not posting on my blog, and being a wild child in my old home of Surrey, far far away from my Powell River life. I did all sorts of fun things, some of which were pretty irresponsible. A bit of a far cry from my sedate, philosophy and book-filled existance up here.

Seems I have a lot of secrets. I'm not quite sure what I think of that, because I liked to think of myself as being secret-free. No longer! I've got all these important people in my life, and they're all radically different. Most of them hate eachother, which definitely keeps things interesting. If you put all my favorite people in a room together, it would probably explode. And then I'm in the middle.

What I'm wondering about is next year. Which kind of ties into the fact that it IS next year - happy new year, guys. But I mean next year as in after I graduate. Suddenly, my lives are going to combine and there WILL be fireworks. I can't even imagine introducing my Powell friends and my Surrey friends to eachother, because everything is so different. I'm half nerdy (and proud, yo!) and half wild child. I guess this next year is going to be all about finding myself.

We talked about New Years resolutions in my Psycology class today. I don't have any, except to finish this next year on top. I think I would like to grow up a little. Have my own place - that's the biggest worry right now. Finding work, getting money. Figuring out who I'm going to live with - the best friend or the boyfriend? Both have proposed plans for future living arrangements, and I'd love to be with them both but who knows?

I think this next year is more full of questions than anything. That's cool, of course - questions lead to answers, right? There's a lot of potential. I think that we're all worried about what's going to happen.

A conversation with a friend led to this idea - graduation feels a lot like the first day of kindergarten. We don't really know what's coming. Of course, friends and family have tried to prepare us, but you can't really understand something until you experience it. It's exciting and terrifying.