Yeild Points -- Stress

So I think recently I have, for nearly the first time in my life been aware of stress in myself. Aware of the worry and the concerns and I believe not just have I been aware of it but also the effect it was having on me and the way I was seeing the world a reacting to people. I think I also have noticed my ability to stay decidedly calm, for the most part. I think I'm dealing with it quite well. It is not something I have ever really thought about, stress and its effect I mean. That is not to say I haven't encountered stress.

In the past I've never been aware as I am now. I also doubt whether I have been under this kind of stress before. I may have mostly just cant recall. That is not to say it is unbearable amount. I'm not even saying I am overly stressed, just that I am stressed and think I'm dealing with it fairly well. Managing stress I imagine becomes a bigger and bigger part of our worlds. Mounting debts of houses and cars, bills for food, electricity and all that just to start and then you have your job and/or uni and/or family commitments and/or friend commitments. Each of these is another thing that can cause concern and worry. Even not overly involved in things I think it must be hard for some people to maintain the distance needed to stay healthy.

There are many things that we worry over yet we have little or no control over. If you look at the above list though people are so very capable. We are stressed but we manage all of those things all the time. It is only on occasion that it seems to or threatens to overwhelm. People should take a great encouragement in that. You are so capable and after all, full of potentials. Stress does do strange things to people however. We lose sight of the important things behind inflated egos and making small things much bigger than they are. Combinations of ego and dark imaginings are no help to anyone.

I'm trying to decide if it is worth settling for a little less in return for feeling a little happier for doing something you want to instead of need to. Unfortunately with time being time it is too often the case of doing one or the other. I think the irony is that stress isn't really real anyway. I mean we experience it however it is something that doesn't really exist except as a perception of how things may or may not be.

Not Neccesarily in that Order -- Mistakes and Friends

I hate making mistakes. I think though that I have an amazing ability to make them. I can't for the life of me seem to be able to make the right choices. Perhaps I am being overly critical and almost certainly a hard task master. Irregardless of this I want to make the right decisions. I want things to go well. In what I do, what I think, who I talk to. I can't for the life of me seem to be able to do it.

I can't help but suggest there be flaws in peoples logic and reasoning when they present ideas to me. I don't really want to be like this anymore. I hate making mistakes with people with things and I want to do better. I suppose direction would help, but equally I thought I had some direction. Maybe I don't believe enough in this direction? I certainly feel a little directionless. Or at least all the directions I wanted to go in yesterday are some how wrong today. Someone once they told me that if I was removed from the people around me I would not survive. I don't think this is true but I certainly like having people around me. There are no illusions about being a social creature.

I spoke of sacrifice with another friend of mine. We talked of the willingness to give of our selves and resources for our mates and friends. I remarked that many people are not willing to make those sacrifice that on the most part many like their friends on their terms. We decided this was a shame, but there is nothing wrong with this. I wonder if this is the same for boyfriends or girlfriends (whichever is your fancy). We are often very happy to sacrifice things we care little for but anything important to the individual quickly outstrips the needs of someones friends. This surely is not the case universally but I bet it is damn hard to pick which one is which till it happens.
I hope I'm the right kind if there is one, I hope I make the right choices, and I hope tomorrow I make fewer mistakes.

I'm OK -- Arts and Mediocrity

I'm not sure about a lot of things. I try to make things as black and white as I can, it's easier to deal with them that way. I know they are not and I know that can limit things in many ways. Recently I have in my rather limited spare thinking time been mulling over art, what people consider art, what meaning does this art have and what constitutes art. I was tempted to write those arts down as 'art' to try and show the lose meaning of the term but I think you guys have got that one.

The point of this is that I love music and I go to art galleries on occasion and half the things I hear and see have about as much meaning to me as a the scratched graffiti on the train I'm on. There is quite probably a strong argument that the majority of music in the top 40 has no meaning what so ever. To take a look at the most popular Miss Minaj...
"I get it cracking like a bad back
Bitch talkin' she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat
I'm Angelina, you Jennifer
Come on bitch, you see where Brad at
Ice my wrist's then I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, givin this the business
Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I aint a stuntman"

Like really?! This drivel is mainstream pop music. Something that is still often considered part of the arts? How does this further anything or anyone. Self-aggrandising bullshit. It has little meaning, does it make me look at things in a different light? Maybe, but I don't think it's an overly helpful light. The thing that gets me is there are some truly talented people out there but we are drowned by mediocrity. When did it become good to be just OK.

Y0u ask people what they think of things and they say it was OK. That's not good enough. Passes are often 50% since when is it OK to propagate a position based on half accurate data, I'm thankful for 50% and there is always space to improve but are we OK with half right? Surrounded and drowning in mediocrity where things strive to be OK. Each human has so much potential there is no reason why others can't do as I have. I'm not anything special really. With the exceptions of the truly upper limits most of us are fit in that bell curve and we can move in that curve. I don't know if there is any limit to my potential. If I was a little less lazy and a little more organised I'd move in my curve for sure. I'd be more, I'd be better. In the meantime I suppose I am who I am and well I could try harder. Would like to work out why I don't. Why I'm not a better person. If there are answers to such things.

I think this is why there is art.  As an idea of a moment. The moment around a feeling, a scene, an idea, a time. Something that we feared and in our awe were taken in its rapture. The pain, the beauty, the wonder. All of these things are so much the maths doesn't do it justice. I wish some of the stuff out there wasn't ok.

Freud -- Facinations

People fascinate me. I'm fascinated by their thoughts, their actions and how they manifest about their bodies. Whether it be tattoos or funny hair, a scarf or hat, or a total lack of care about the way they dress. Their manorisms and looks. This stuff fascinates me. We are the sum of our choices, (yes, I should probably refrence this) and as such we choose who we are to a degree. If one doesnt care about how they appear to others it can mean many things. Whatever it is tells something about that person.

I love looking at these things and wondering, "who are you?". I'm one of those odd people who talks to others on public transport. I'm mostly harmless and I want to hear about who you are... to a degree anyway.

Eating, Drinking and Being Merry -- States of Being

So I've been away... for nearly two weeks now. It was uni holidays. Yes I had more time to think but well nothing really worth telling you about. I did however go to Melbourne. That may also have contributed to problems.

I loved Melbourne. It had so much food and drink, they were all over the shop. I went down there for the purpose of seeing a concert with my father. It was a band called, 'Yes', they were excellant and I saw them at a place called 'the Palazio'. It was a truely wonderful venue. IT was a converted old cinema or theatre. Big commpfy leather seats two teir and just a lovely venue. The band was amazing, I hear with a change, maybe two to the line up they would be even better but I tell you what I was stoked to see them and very impressed.

I tried swordfish and drank a variety of beers and cocktails. If I could afford to I'd love to do that all the time. Out with friends, eating and drinking and being merry.

It struck me how much I value and want to do that and want to have people around me to do that too. I also want to be able to afford to do this. What I'll sacrifice to do that I'm not sure yet.

All the things we want to do everywhere you want to be, see and do they cost. Whether it is in money or time, energy, sleep or doing something else. I don't know how you give these things worth but in the end I think I do what will make me happiest. Even if its painful now it may give the oppotunity to be happy in the future. Happy is where I want to be. Its not a goal for me just a state of being sometimes its easier sometimes harder but it is just a state.

So come with me lets eat, drink and be merry.

How things might be -- Stories

This university path that I'm taking is an interesting. New friends and the like but the other day I had an oppotunity to share the last couple years of my story with some guys. They were shocked. They thought it was pretty full on some of the stuff that happened. Despite this, (and it's probably true) I don't think on it as incredibly full on, not now. In reflection some of it wasn't much fun but damn there was a lot of learning to be done. Lots of lessons, lots of growing. Above all, things just keep going. It's one of the reasons I'm always reminded that these things to will pass.

Having said that I don't revel in the oppotunity to share my story as I once did. Not much I can learn from the recount I give. I like to hear theirs, other stories. I like hearing that someone else may have seen what I have that I am connected to them in some distance and convoluted way. I've always been very open about my story though. If someone will ask then I will tell. The story I tell though is just my veiw of it. I will admit it is probably inaccurate, there are many flaws in human memory documented and I am after all just another man.

It has been really interesting going back to uni. There are people all around me younger and older; some even my age. For some of the first years I was working five days a week when they started year eight in high school. Yet others who were working when I was in year eight! I'm really enjoying all the interaction with people. I love being social and it gives me energy. It wont last, there are only so many shallow relationships one can deal with I think but we shall see. There so many ideas, good and bad, opinions right and wrong, and so much pool and beer. Things I like very much.

I'm travelling to Melbourne next week for a concert I'll let you all know about it. Should be a good bit of fun. Going with Dad for music but I can't wait to eat and drink and with those two things going down well I'll be bloody merry!

Talk to you soon.

Smash, Crash, Whoops -- Mistakes

The problem with mistakes is that you can never fix them. Not really. You can do things properly but once you have made the mistake; it's made. I'm always amused at people who say they live with no regrets and for a number of reasons. Particularly people who say they dont regret anything. I tell you what there are things I wish I hadn't done. I regret things but do my best to move on, accept, learn and continue onwards. The whole idea to me that someone has nothing where they say, 'well kinda wish I hadn't done that', is laughable. There has got to be someone who you've hurt, something that you've said, something you've done. There is nothing wrong with regret.

The point is I feel like I should be someplace else. I've lost three years wasting time. This is a silly thought and a totally rediculous dellusional illusion. Just can't shake that feeling that I should just be somewhere not, where I am. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm on the right path, just lagging behind.

Most of this is probably in reference to others, (always a bad place to begin). There is nothing I can do about it, so accept I will and move on. The world after all keeps spinning. Just if you could all stop getting good jobs and careers, getting girlfriends, boyfriends, fiances and spouses. You know just till I've caught up.

Mistakes can be fixed though, just gotta make sure it didn't do too much damage first. I hear time heals all wounds, even if that's not true it must heal a great deal of them.