Re:Creation

now, in more chronological order than not, search engine queries which found my blog (since june 2002–multiple occurences noted in parentheses):

• Its on the tip of my tongue (4)
• humorous naked bbq photos
• from the tip of my tongue
• tongue cleaning
• 160a stanford
• Jon Lipps
• jonathan lipps stanford
• jonathan lipps (2)
• sores tip of tongue (3)
• Stanford CoHo summer hours
• divx to vhs
• fake languages conlangs
• stanford blog
• my spacecoaster
• how to draw cool spaceships
• Erin Spokes (3)
• being sick and have a few little sores on tongue
• i burn my tongue picture
• medical problem i can’t taste sweet on my tongue
• human tongues list of tongue sores
• conversational spanish classes dallas
• tip of my tongue lyrics
• tongue
• how long it takes to move into an apartment

first things first: if you were the person searching the net for “humorous naked bbq photos”, please do not come back to this site. ever. likewise for the seeker of “i burn my tongue picture”.

secondly, i simply find it odd that (1) many of these searches actually happened [we are now using the internet to ask questions like, "how long does it take to move into an apartment"???? as long as it takes you to move your stuff, buddy!! come on], and (2) people who were serious and specific enough to look for “medical problem i can’t taste sweet on my tongue” strayed from their search and came to my page. which, and it were obvious, has nothing to do with that at all.

thirdly, it’s a little bit dishearening that just as many people found my blog looking for my friend erin as found it looking for me. ah well.

virtual disc on spin: come away with me | norah jones

i am now officially back from my blog-vacation. not that i ever intended to take one in the first place, but this is what happened: in short, my life became a very interesting mix of the insanely boring and the insanely busy. now, in normal times and under normal conditions, i would only experience one of these extremes at a time; the rest of the day or week or month would be smoothed out by a moderate balance. not so these last two weeks–i have been riding the pendulum daily in a rollercoaster-like arc.

so, you, my faithful blog readers (of which i’m sure there are now none) have been left out of both the inane and the exciting. better this way, in my opinion, than just receiving the inane.

in any case my observation over the past two weeks is this: life without a blog is the same. i did no better or worse in any area of my being, and no observable changes ensued during the unintentional blog fast.

mostly, this made me breathe a sigh of relief, as i can now safely put to death the false accusations of blog-haters (secretly blog-enviers, no doubt) everywhere and their silly arguments as to the addictive and/or harmful and/or useless nature of the blog.

unfortunately, i have neither read anyone’s blog for the past few weeks, and so i don’t know what’s going on in the lives of many of my friends. sooner or later i will catch up, i promise.

listening to: the sound of my brother sleeping

so. bored. and. lazy.

somebody rescue me, it’s friday night.

i am randomly heading to orange county this weekend (i.e., now). california, this time. see you there.

last week i worked 50 hours. not much time left over for thought. but i did learn something. a very sad and sobering something. it is this:

in my life i have yet to experience the power of true action.

i realized that what i have been experiencing is passion, in the philosophical sense: being acted upon.

in other words, i have felt the power of emotion, felt the power of joy and sorrow and the fantastic intermingling thereof with nostalgia, etc…

and yet, when emotions die, as they do moments after their inspirations, they leave nothing, save perchance a fading resolve that crumbles under the weight of its duty.

real change, real progress of character must come instead from decision, from action. emotions can ignite but it is the will that must drive–however the will will, be it on its own power or only by grace [i certainly know into which category falls mine].

but, i think, it is exactly this sustained force of willful avowedness which i do not posess. and so i have yet to discover the possibilities of growth which may be unlocked by that key.

i am young frodo, and my passions are the shire: i’m still in love with little brooks and streams to paddle down, soft meadows and pleasant hazy evenings. in my heart i am not yet old enough to perceive the majesty of the misty mountains, the whispering magic of lothlorien, the echoing stillness of moria, or the piercing white silver of ecthelion. i am not old enough to desire more than my little comfortable corner of personhood; not old enough to realize that sooner or later i had better be off Questing, or my little world could abrubtly…end…

so i stay, and paddle down the streams, and lie in the meadows on sunny afternoons. an easy life, replete with occasional, exciting bouts of emotional energy, but nothing so serious as to be…difficult. an easy life…

but there are times, like now, when i glance at the road beneath my feet and something deep inside stirs…an ancient dragon halfway waking from sleep, one eye open…there are times when the road seems more like a stream, flowing faster and faster into other streams, all leading somewhere–and those times i want to follow the soft suggestion of the road, no less urgent for being whispered, to go.