2006//03//12

(YES, THE PICTURES ARE 7 MONTHS LATE, BIG WHOOP WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?)

i never get sick.
alright, that's a lie, i generally get sick once per year, when allergy season starts.
simple sinus infection, nothing too big.
this year, my immune system was a total dickhead, and kicked my ass for about 4 weeks straight.
but i used to never get sick!

i play too many video games.
i should have outgrown it years ago.
maybe after college, but i'm not holding my breath.



i wish i had more to offer.
because of this, i have such contradicting notions of "self;"
i can one day feel completely self-sufficient, worthy,
and with the ability to offer to this world something completely original;
but the next day...   not.
i guess it's a normal mood-swing type thing,
but sometimes i wish i wasn't so bipolar about it.

i'm ridiculously and irrationally shy.
unless i'm already comfortable with you.
this is why, if i mention the shyness to my friends, i always get the same response:
what, you?
i just have this tendency to watch other people more than participating.
from this habit, it's easy to get caught up in a feeling of insufficiency:
what they have to offer, how they present themselves, who they are.
i feel like an outsider looking in.
if i let it get to me too much, the cycle is just further perpetuated.



because of this, sometimes i try too hard.
and then feel really foolish afterwards.
in many senses, it's something we all do:
"why did i just say that?"

i am the world's biggest procrastinator.
if i can put it off for another 5 minutes, i'll put it off for ten.
i'm not exactly the best student, for this reason alone.
it's not that i don't care,
it's just my way of being lazy.
sort of like right now.   i should be writing a paper on Kant's notion of happiness.
i am always late.
i really like other people who are also always late.



after too much ado, i'll finally be graduating UCLA this summer, after a five year stint.
i have, in every sense of the phrase, super-senioritis.
i have no idea what i'm going to be doing with my life five months from now.
i'm 22 years old, and kind of wishing that i had some of this stuff figured out.

i care very little about how i dress, or how i look in certain attire.
i think obviously bad (or self-done) hair-cuts are the absolute best,
but to say that i care nothing of physical appearance would be a lie.
i'm borderline obsessive on being in good physical shape.
this arises partially from being self-conscious,
but also, i love the concept of trying to be in the best physically shape one can be in.
heh, i was an athlete for way too many years.



i have zero musical or artistic talent, and am extremely jealous of those who do.
i like to think i make up for it by being quite creative, in my own right.
i've got this semi-secret desire of writing a great novel some day,
but then, i'm really quite the procrastinator.
or so you've heard.

i desperately miss quesadillas from time to time, regardless of my veganism.
i just loved cheese so much!



i recently arrived home from a nine month adventure in australia.
i hated a sizeable chunk of my time there, mainly from feeling so lonely.
i find it really hard to meet new people (hey, i'm shy),
but got really lucky meeting such an amazing group of people through my swing dance class.

oh yeah, i love to dance.   man i do.

i think it's crazy how much people can change in a nine month period,
returning to find many friends the same, and some drastically different.
but i guess the real surprise was finding how much i had changed.
after being in a completely different part of the world for such a long time,
admittedly isolated, and very much forced to be introspective,
i've acquired an appreciation for looking at things slowly and more calculated.
just, taking one's time.
it's a big change from the impatient-nate of before.



i really enjoy philosophy, and am glad to have chosen it as a scholastic pursuit...
but sometimes feel so out of my league.
it would help if i was a better student, i'm sure,
but egads, some of these guys were so smart!
i really like considering the day to day things that we all take for granted.
things like choices, like happiness, like morality.
i like it because it's so inconspicuous:
one could go for days or weeks or years without ever considering them,
but only through truly understanding them can we appreciate.
i think it's funny when people say that philosophers "ask questions nobody cares about,"
because it seems to be a more ignorant way of saying,
"ignorance is bliss."



i'm a little afraid of heights.
i really want to go sky-diving.
i also really don't like mushrooms, brocolli, or olives, but i'm starting to tolerate all three.
i wish this weren't the case, because it just means that my mom was right all along.   dang her!

i ttally love the book "fight club," and the philosophies therein.
during my time in australia, i came to very much embrace a nihilist take on life.
i don't entirely agree with its position anymore,
but it still influences me a lot, both philosophically and religiously.



i enjoy flirting with taoist religious ideas,
despite the entirety of my religion being based off fundamental christianity.
i feel that this aspect of progression has done nothing to hinder my spirituality,
but but does pull me quite far from any "mainstream" religious thought.
i really like the ideas in taoism regarding action through non-action,
or really any sort of "let it flow" mentality that comes with it.
it makes sense for me, because this is what i always loved about christianity,
the whole, "don't worry, because it always works out in the end" train of thought.



i like my food so spicy that it brings tears to the eyes,
and burns the tongue for 20 minutes after you're done eating.
if you're like me, i'd recommend "dave's insanity sauce."
i have a tendency to put it on everything,
and make fun of pansy "hot" dishes in restaurants.
i'm pretty sure i could put la victoria salsa on any dinner dish you could think of,
and find that it tastes better.
good lord, i've sold out to commercial advertising.

i believe in Love more than any other philosophical or religious concept.
i don't like that it's so fleeting.
for some reason, the concept "Love" and i don't seem to get along.
it's really just that we're never in the same room at the same time,
like superhero alter egos.
or perhaps this weird cycle of phone-tag,
with ill-timed messages left on scratchy machines.
if this seems cynical it's not;
i really don't mind.
i view Love as a gamble,
i'm just no good at it yet.



this certainly doesn't discourage me, but i won't lie:
coming to grips with a lost Love has been probably the hardest thing i've ever done.
it comes with the territory.
i wish i could let go of things more easily.
i find the struggle between rationality and Love oh-so intriguing:
the stability versus the gamble.

underneath it all, i'm just ready to Love.
in many ways, i ache for it, similar to what was written a year ago,
only everything is so much different now.
i now know what it is, what it means to me, how it feels...
i guess i wish i could be in a position where i could Love without reservation,
but finding this position seems to be the trick, doesn't it?

i liken it to a puzzle piece;
if one has fully explored all the corners, now that each groove is charted and mapped and laid out,
isn't the question just finding the missing piece?
i don't think any individual is insufficient, but that together, they become more.
i'm not obsessive, really, it's just on my mind.



or perhaps, as we've been told, we're not really looking for a person,
but we're looking for an answer.

of all the lines in this exposition,
that's the one that rings most true.

i was looking for an answer.


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