Today is a bright and shinny morning, a little too bright actually. The first thing I had to do was close some shades because I was bumping into objects while in a well lite room. Yesterday I did my first recording of a podcast. I guess I’ll share the link if anyone really wants to check it out. I’m not trying to push stuff on people, and who knows if I’ll be able to commit to it long term. I find the idea very fascinating though and there’s something exciting about being live on a microphone that gets my blood pumping. I’d like to keep doing it, but I’d also like to be making paintings everyday, it’s more a matter of finding what I can do consistently. Also I’ve been building my day from the ground up, having a daily routine makes activities easier to do. If the podcast fits into my routine without being something I feel forced to do, I’m sure it’ll work out. What’s also very exciting is the speech aspect. In the first episode I did some Eminem that starts with “but saying I no longer got it”, that message is what fuels me, and the flow of that section matches the feeling. The feeling is I can out talk anyone. Typing here is a completely different beast than talking. I was once on a cruise and I was having a rough night when these kids walked in and decided to make a bunch of nonsense and my immediate reaction was to shout, “shut up.” Their group came over me because teenage boys aren’t going to be told what to do. Obviously I could have hurt them physically, but I’m not a monster. The kid I told to shut up possessed the argument to me, “You don’t have to listen.” That gave me an idea, kids have a short attention span, so I began to talk. I kept talking and talking because I knew eventually they’d forget the words I was saying in the beginning and be lost in the conversation. It worked, they told me to watch my back and left. I could have went all night.
Brick and mortars are being bricked and mortared
We heard from the appraiser for the new place yesterday. Everything is looking good and we’re pretty much done, only need a few more signatures. First, owning a place is huge to me, even if I only owned a patch of dirt. I would be happy if I was only buying the dried up pond on the property. I was going to describe this view as American because a lot of the poignant wordings that effected me came from someone like Henry David Thoreau. I’m also thinking about the movie Jeremiah Johnson and the idea of “Going West” in America. The idea that a person can go out where no one has flattened the grass yet and make their own way. Once I own this land, I can do things my way. Of course I don’t mean things that break the laws of the country or even local building codes, but up till now I’ve been renting. Renting means either I have to keep coming up with money to pay for this place the rest of my life or I won’t stay there. Knowing something is temporary makes it hard to put down roots. I put down some trees in the backyard of the house I’m currently in and I’m not looking forward to digging up tree roots. Who am I kidding, I am looking forward to digging, but not undoing work I’ve done. Owning a place and believing I will be there for life allows me to move forward with any project I want, it doesn’t matter if the project takes a decade to complete or if the rest of the world finds it ugly. I’m doing this for me. When you have a place to call your own, you’re living for yourself. In Of Mice and Men when they’re talking about their plan, George says, “If we don’t like a fella, then they can leave.”
Flip flop drip drop
Chappelle had a special recently called 8:46 and one of the things he noted in it was 8:46 was the time of his birth. There were a couple other instances he mentions of patterns he sees with numbers and places. When I was rediscover Christianity and trying to make sense of the Bible, a friend let me know that not everything has to be a pattern. The Bible is full of patterns and is self referential, make no mistake about that. What I want to talk about is these people that are constantly forming patterns. I’ve always said the brain is a pattern recognizing machine, but maybe that only applies to my type of brain. There’s a quote by Freud that I think is incredible for its simplicity, but also saying it all. “Everything is related to everything.” I’ve always been a believer in the theory that if we could know where every atom in the world is and how it reacts to every other atom, some sort of super computer could calculate every event that will happen for all eternity. That’s not going to happen because atoms aren’t the most base material. We will never know what the foundation of reality is because, “If our brains were simple enough to understand, we’d be too simple to understand them.” My stomach cells will never know that I ate bad fish last night because that’s not what they were made for, they have specific receptors that cue specific actions. Of course now you’re wondering, what are we made for? Welcome to existentialism, but you’re better off asking “What am I made for?” There’s only one way to find out, go exploring. Exploring is dangerous though, someone might get the idea their head was made for crushing aluminum cans. If people are applauding as they do it, that’s confirmation.
Superior super hero supposed how risers sync up
I broke three eggs on the first try today, that must be a good omen. Perhaps all my chicks will hatch this fall. With this sign from the heavens, I’m going to go ahead and count all my eggs to plan for having that many chickens. I’m working on figuring out other social media platforms. There’s this entrepreneur, Gary Vee, who has written about his idea that people who want to be on social media in a professional sense should be posting 50 pieces of media a day. He explains that means taking bites out of longer content and posting it on other platforms. I’ll probably do something like that because it’s usually different audiences in different places, so they haven’t seen it before, but it still feels a little disingenuous. Regardless, the idea I’d like to work some kinks out of today is the podcast. To be clear, I’m not trying to make social media my profession. I want to be left alone to do my thing, but humans still need social interaction. I’ve adapted to having conversations with myself, which I’m fine with, but I have to get the words out in the real world otherwise it’s as if I never existed. The reason I’m excited for the podcast is because I want to talk to myself, I’m my favorite person and I’d like to get to know me better. I’ve been trying to think of a title for the show, “Me, myself and I” could be fitting, but I liked, “Being Chris Cooper” as a play on Being John Malkovich since Chris Cooper is an actor as well and the podcast would be similar to the movie Being John Malkovich in that it’d be giving people some time to see what it’s like in my head, without the price of being dropped along a NJ highway afterwards.
100 Follower Special
I need to say thank you, to anyone who reads this, I think you’re really cool. Yesterday my blog got 100 followers. That is a milestone, not that I know what it means, but it’s like I woke up in the passenger side of a car and saw the mile marker for 99.6 I’m going to keep an eye out for 100. I wanted to recognize it because it’s something to wrap my head around. Presumably real people are clicking the follow button, that means they read something I wrote and decide they would like to see more. That’s insane, thank you for your attention, I’ll try to never waste it. As you’ll see below though I like to build patterns to what I’m saying on different levels so they weave together. If it’s unclear what I’m saying, I can understand if that’s frustrating. I think I’m a pretty talented guy though, and what I do I do it well, so as long as my intention is to create something of quality and value I believe it will happen. The future though, so obviously there’s the craziness of the house, but I’m a glutton for punishment and when the going gets tough the tough get going. I’m going to try and spread this content out across other platforms. If you haven’t already, you should check out my instagram. I’ve cleaned things up a lot and it’s mostly pictures of what I’m growing and my dog. They’re from the same batch of pictures I post with my morning pages, but I’ve been posting three pictures a day there because I can’t get them out fast enough here. I kind of want to start a podcast. My only idea for it is to sit down in a chair and talk for an hour. I don’t think I would prepare anything for it, but you can see what my stream of consciousness is like for an hour. There’s a ton to figure out, but I wanted to recognize the milestone and would like to put more effort into growing what I’ve got.
Let the spice flow
This is gonna be a good one, I can feel it. I’m sorry for all those who don’t like my “good ones”, they’re usually off the wall because there’s no foundation. See what I did there? I’m going to show you what I see with my inner eye. It’s starts with the infinite, as with all things the beginning is the end. My dad would call me his blue baby because in the womb the umbilical cord had wrapped around my baby neck. He jokes that I was playing jump rope in there. My mom had a C(for chris)-section, but I remember being told I was supposed to be born on 4th of July, so I was a little late. I was almost a Yankee-doodle-dandy, but got caught up rapping. I wonder if I have to go back and explain that sentence. I want to say that anyone that reads me can catch it. Yankee-doodle-dandy is someone born on 4th of July, but there are also connections to my aspirations in the military and how I like to decorate in Red, White and Blue. (notice there’s no comma after “White” because that’s an Oxford comma and I’m all about American punctuation), so I feel like I missed that dream and it’s a part of my character. Why I missed the dream was because I got “caught up” meaning wrapped in my umbilical cord and that in life I got distracted by things associated with rap(sex, drugs and money) while referencing “wrapped around my baby neck.” with “rapping”. That’s one sentence, that’s where I’m at. If you’re not there, then I’ll show you how.
P.S. You should share my website with someone that is cool.
Almighty culminating in an M-80
It’s around lunch time now, I don’t know how I forgot to write this earlier. I ran yesterday and maybe dieted a little low on calories, so I’m feeling pretty low on energy today. I also had a bad night’s sleep, it was the sort of sleep I get when I don’t eat enough. I wonder how dramatic I am, it wasn’t a bad night, but I didn’t sleep through the night so by the purpose of sleep it would be bad. I don’t want to be complaining because the sleep felt really good and I’ve been un-depressingly happy lately. When I woke up in the middle of the night, the feeling is more like excited to consciously be under the covers in a cool, dark room. The down side is the dread of waking up just before your alarm goes off.
In the Army, there has to be people on guard at all times. At night it’s usually one hour per person because there’s only 8-16 guys to cover a shift anyway. The worst guard shifts were probably starting two hours after you could go to sleep or wake up for guard three hours before everyone wakes up. After I became a sergeant I was the one who made the guard lists. If there were eight guys that I out-ranked, I wouldn’t even need to be on guard. Often I would still put myself on guard, but I would take the hour before wake up. I usually showed up to work an hour early to get ready for the day anyway. If first formation was at 7:00 AM, I still had work that needed to be submitted before 6:30 AM everyday. It’s so wild to think about those days, and I’m honestly thankful to wake up early to make Mary’s breakfast because it gives me something to do. I need tasks, even if they’re as mundane as, “check these boxes and return the paper”.
Know where
Good morning sunshine, today is Monday and that marks a new opportunity to be better. I ate my healthy breakfast already and after this will go for a run. I think the run will be the hardest thing I have to do today. I’m considering fixing my binoculars, they got out of focus when I went to the beach recently. It’s so hard to do anything more than wait for the house. I try to keep busy with other activities, but nothing is as exciting as that. I’m told there’s a bunch of craziness going on in the world, but it’s just another war. My stance for awhile has been to oppose all wars, even if that means you’re killed by someone that wants to start a war. A quote from the the movie Troy, “War is old men talking and young men dying.” If the Trojan war did take place, it was probably over 3,000 years ago. I can feel it though, the conflicts that are taking place now will settle all our differences and from here on out people will only be peaceful with each other. People are quick to say, “Don’t cover shooting because it celebritizes the shooter.” Then of course they go on to watch videos of protests, riots, and police brutality. There’s no way the footage being aired on screens across the globe today could be setting us up for 10 more years of monkey see, monkey do, right? If you don’t watch the news when they show violence, then they’ll stop showing it; it’s good for ratings. Then we have footage of people fighting on 24/7 stations, watching angry people doesn’t calm you down. I’m nearing completion of my studying that’s been going on for 30 years and includes more than a million test subjects and the data is looking like watching scary things makes people scared.
Beautiful Abundance
I’m writing this from the green house, there was a big storm that ended about an hour ago and now I’m under attack of mosquitos. I’ve wondered if the food forest has been good for bugs in general, I try to provide better stuff to eat than me. We also got word that the inspection of the new house has been completed. Things are moving along and it’s so crazy, I love it. I’m very grateful for everything I have in life and hopefully act in a way that is deserving of it. I can’t wait to start moving, this will be the first time in my life I’ll be excited to move. Hopefully it ends up being the last time I move; wouldn’t that be lovely. A little place of Earth to call my own. I watched a video today of a guy digging out his basement. When he redid the floor, he put a time capsule in the concrete. I think that’s a good idea to consider because you have no idea who will ever see the contents of the capsule. If it’s somewhere on my land I suspect I’ll be long dead before anyone has a chance to know the time capsule exists. I just realized that this is a time capsule. My whole life documented by myself one day at a time. That gives me the urge to throw up, maybe because it make me feel very human. These days are finite. I don’t know how I got so interested in plants. It was something that was always in me even at a young age, but I never saw this happening. I don’t even know how I got so many plants, they kept accumulating and I see each one as a challenge and when the plant dies, I lose. I don’t want to lose, not to a stupid plant.
Follow a frog for grog
I’ve got one shot to do this, fingers don’t fail me now. Today has been pretty cool, the sunflower that’s growing in my front yard opened for the first time. It’s got a beautiful color that I wasn’t expecting, I don’t know if it will last. I get so excited watching plants grow, it’s more like a class in biology to me though. I study the phases of flowers and stems, what new leafs look like. For some reason I can’t get enough of this stuff, maybe because there’s an endless amount to be learned and it’s all bedrock knowledge. By that I mean, it’s all verifiable by reaching my hands out and touching it, that’s how you can tell something is true. Well in philosophy it’s not enough, but that’s why plants are better for my head than philosophy. The path to nihilism gobbles me up quickly in philosophy. Studying plants leads to me eating healthier, getting sun, and wanting to take photos. Still if there’s something to be learned out there, I want to know it. I can’t wait for the new house, I can hear sirens now and our back yard neighbors shouting at each other, soon it will be silent. I joke about never seeing another person again and there’s a scary amount of truth in that sentence because deliveries are so stream lined and every company has to offer shipping, usually for free, if they’re going to compete with amazon. I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons to call them an evil company, but it’s an example of why competition in good. I remember paying $15 for shipping and handling on every delivery. That was back when I had to borrow my parent’s credit card to buy something online. Thank goodness those days are over and I can’t wait until all delivery fees are gone. I want all “fees” gone, as in itemizations. Tell me the real cost and I’ll tell you if I’ll pay it.
Clone a bone
I’m invoking the muses on this one, so watch out. My first thought is to take the writing in the direction of artistically describing something beautiful, similar to poetry, but to be honest I know that’s no my strength. There’s a person who likes my blog posts occasionally with a name like, “needlessly overthinking”, and that is my strength. I’m sorry if I incorrectly remembered that name, remembering names is also a weakness of mine. I could be given a 50 character long string to remember and it wouldn’t be too difficult, but introduce me to someone at a party and quiz me on their name at the end of the night, I will fail every time. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had to write someone off completely because I’m not going to ask for their name again. A nice part of getting older is learning what your strengths are and accepting you can’t be good at everything. I was telling Mary yesterday that eight time Mr. Olympia, Ronnie Coleman, is a failed accountant. Some of my fondest memories are sitting in the university computer lab at night, crunching away numbers for my accounting homework. I got to where I could do all my calculations on the number pad of a key board without looking away from the screen. I would get some serious speed sorting assets and debts, it’s actually no different than me doing super fast Eminem raps. I mean it feels like I’m using the same parts of my brain. Although there was an added feeling of my fingers, which is similar to typing when you don’t need to look at the keyboard. I was better with the number pad than I was with a keyboard because I never bothered to learn the entire keyboard until I starting coding.
Chris' Morning Pages 