I think there’s something about the way I’m wired.  I could pretty much listen to this song over and over again forever and never get bored…

Hopefully Kingdom Hearts 3 will have an equally awesome intro. It will probably cause me to cave in and buy a PS3.

Here’s the trailer for KH3 btw in case you haven’t seen it.

Welll I have this constantly evolving “in the event of my death” document that I’ve been writing, deleting, rewriting, altering, writing in my head, for like forever.  It contains a lot of personal messages to the people I care about. And a lot of pointless drivel about what I want  to have done with my stuff after I die and  what I want my funeral to be like and all that jazz.

So I guess if I have a week left, the first thing I have to do is figure out who I’m going to share the password to that document with and who to give instructions to read it and distribute the relevant portions to the people who need to receive it.

I usually have an idea of who that will be in my head. It’s usually whomever I consider to be my best friend at the time. I have no idea who that will be by the time I start to be dying. And I’m not entirely sure I know who that is right now. But whoever it is, I’d entrust with the safety and proper handlement of that document.  Assuming I haven’t deleted it lately. I do that about once a year or so…

So after that then what to do with my full week of joyful waiting?   Hmm.

I know. I’m going to rent a bus. Maybe several buses. Then I’m going to gather together everyone I’ve ever known and cared about even the slightest tiniest bit. Even the people I’ve never met. Even the people I haven’t seeen since I was a little kid. Everyone I can get a hold  of. Friends. Family.  And I’ll tell them to drop everything and come with me. No matter what they’re doing. Just *drop it* and come.

I won’t tell them I’m dying. I’ll just say that this is the last and only favor I will ever ask of them. And I’ll tell them that there has never been any event more important to me. So if they care, or they’re just curious they should just come. No excuses. Just come.

And then we’re going to go on a cross country trip. All of us. Together. We’re gonna just drive and drive and get to know each other and have fun. Don’t know where we’re going and don’t care.  By the end of the trip I want everyone I’ve ever known to truly know one another. And be real friends. Despite all their disparate backgrounds and radically variant personalities.  We’re all human and I believe we can all reach a common ground.

And so maybe that can be my legacy. Building community and friendship amongst the people I care about….

Of course there’s a chance nobody will respond. That everyone will be too busy with their lives and what not.

In that case I’m just going to go to the library. And literaly read until I drop dead.
   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

I’m noticed lately that we’ve become more and more critical of one another when we vary psychologically from the norm.  There is this sort of expectation out there that we’re all supposed to be just so damn perfectly well adjusted
 with respect to everything. That you’re never supposed to be negative. That you’re never supposed to be self-critical, or filled with doubt, or angry or afraid or lonely or introverted or shy or wishy-washy or inconstant. You can’t be ashamed of yourself. You can’t be disgusted with yourself. You’re not allowed to feel devastated or hatred or repulsion.  Not even a little. Not even for one second. 

That’s sort of the way it goes now. If someone sees a person going through something like that, there’s sort of this “Woah, stay away from that guy!” kind of an attitude. She’s got issues. Or he’s got problems. Or they’re just spreading too much negative energy. And so on and so forth.

Here’s the thing though. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t on some level have these kinds of issues. I’ve never encountered anyone who didn’t have dark thoughts sometimes or who wasn’t filled with angst or melancholy or self doubt at least sometimes. So if we’re all supposed to avoid these people, who pray tell, are we supposed to be interacting with?

Maybe you’re saying “Wait wait, they do exist. I know lots of people who are just perfectly fine and don’t have any problems.”  Well I’m a natural skeptic so you’re just going to have to show me these people and prove it to me before I believe you. Cuz I’ve never met one person. Not one single person for which this was even remotely true in all my long 28 years of life

What I have encountered more often than I like though is people who are nearly perfect at pretending to be so. People who are just fully smiling masks of positivity and flawless masters of the perception of fitting in into every circumstance in which they engage without a hint of doubt or fear or shame or uncertainty.

Yeah I’ve met people like that.

And to tell you the truth. They scare the shit out of me.

Because when really bad unexpected things happen to most people, they break. And it sucks sure. Hopefully it’s a clean break and it heals clean and true in short order. For some few and in some few specific circumstances, people instead shatter. And then it takes quite a while to put the pieces back together again.

But these people? When the time comes, I don’t think they will either break or shatter. No. Their lifetime of pretenses will have created such a pressure system within them that when something finally breaks through their walls, it won’t be pretty at all. They will explode. And I fear for how many innocent bystanders will be caught up in the blast.

It’s all absurd really. Why expect a society where we all hide of ourselves every vulnerability and weakness? Why should we want to live in a world where we all go through our daily lives as little smiling happy go lucky automatons only to more often than not go home to bed and cry ourselves to sleep at night? It’s quite irrational. But it seems sometimes to me that that is what we are pushing toward. 

We want to live in that fantasy world. Rather than admit that everybody else has problems too.

Absolutely everything you do gets easier the more often you do it.

Even running away.

The first time you run, it feels miserable. It feels like you are doing something horribly wrong. You are appalled at how much of a coward you’ve been and ashamed of how weak you are.

But then the next time comes and in spite of all those feelings you do it again. And this time… it’s not quite so bad is it? It feels a little more natural. You still hate it, but you are sort of resigned a little to the fact that you are a person who runs away.

And the next time you become even more resigned. It becomes even EASIER. And pretty soon before you know it you’re just running and running along at break neck speed. Running away from everything that hurts. Running away from everything that’s hard. Running away from everything that doesn’t turn out quite the way you wished or dreamed it would.

And it’s just soooo easy to just keep running. It’s comfortable. It feels natural. You’re so busy running you don’t even ever stop long enough to remember why it was that you hated yourself for running that very first time oh so very long ago. But the guilt is still there, lying in the background, hiding behind every footfall. It’s just waiting for you.

So that first time, when it finally comes, after you’ve been running so long you don’t even remember what it feels like not to run, when you make yourself *stop* and say “No! I am *not* running away this time!”   It’ll be the most painful and difficult thing in the world. All those memories will still be there lying in wait for you. All that fear and shame and self-doubt it won’t have disappeared for all that you have ignored it all this time. And it will be so very hard to face it. Impossibly hard.

But only the first time.

Because it gets easier. The next time you refuse to run, it won’t be as bad. And the next time. And the next time.

And soon enough maybe you’ll find, that you can be strong too you know? And then you won’t need to run away any more.

I’m probably the most liberal person in the world!   It’s true. Ask me anything.

Sometimes I don’t let on about this. Most people who know me don’t guess this about me. I don’t always broadcast my views. But it’s true. Most of the time I hear the opinion that people call “liberal” or “progressive” and I think “is that liberal?” It sounds so conservative! When I fill out political surveys designed to pinpoint your opinion, I constantly find that *none* of the choices are sufficiently liberal.  Worse, every choice pretty much pisses me off.

Think you’re more liberal than me? Prove it!

So I was bored so I took a bunch of personality tests over the weekend. I love this kind of stuff. I like trying to find new ways to learn more about myself and although a part of me thinks all of these tests are a bunch of bull I still deeply enjoy taking them and seeing the results and comparing them to that of others. 

Here’s my results of one of the tests:  http://nephyo.mypersonality.info/

This one puts me as an INTP which is what most of the people who know me would guess that I am. According to this site they decided to give that the arbitrary label of “Intellectual Engineer”.

I’ve taken two other tests and they both put me as INFP, which is the Visionary Dreamer or according to another site the Idealist Healer. So it seems I’m right on the edge between F and T.

INFP’s are cooler. I prefer that categorization. Bastian from The Neverending story! I’m not a big fan of engineers. Never really got along with the people in that department in college.

But really I sort of wish I was an INTJ!  Those are the Strategists and strategists in stories are just sooo badass. Like the Silverbergs from the Suikoden  games for example. They are so totally awesome. Gandalf is listed as an INTJ too and who wouldn’t want to be like Gandalf?  

If there was a war between all 16 types, INTJ would totally own everyone. In addition to Gandalf, they’ve got Professor Moriarty, Mr. Burns, Stewie Griffin,  Michael and Vito Corleone, Marsellus Wallace, and Hannibal Lecter. Eisenhower, Colin Powell, Thomas Jefferson, and Arnold Schwarzeneggar too! Not to mention Isaac Newton! How could any other type have a chance?

INFP’s on the other hand would totally just opt out of the fight entirely. They’d totally wander off the battlefield and start writing poetry or essays about the nature of the cosmos and their own feelings about the place of war in the grand scheme of human existence. Or maybe stare off at the sky and dream of dragons coming down from the clouds to tell them epic romantic tales of Princes saving Princesses from giant towers ruled by evil wizards.

If the sides that were fighting came to them, they very much want to help forge a lasting peace between them. But if nobody is ready to listen they’d be perfectly happily to delve into their own inner world and live there while everyone else wastes their time and energy on pointless childish war drivel. Yup. That’s me alright.

Then again INTP’s aren’t that different either. And they’ve got Socrates who has been my hero since college.

Anyway, just as interesting as the personality type, there was another test on that page to show your Intelligence Types.  Again, that’s another theory I sort of suspect is a load of bull. But it was an interesting test. But the results sort of shocked me a little!

I have ZERO Visual/Spatial Intelligence!?!?!?!  That’s right! Zilch. Zero. None! Not one iota of visual/spatial capacity. No WONDER I get lost so easily!

So whatever you do, if you ever want to explain something to me, DO NOT draw me a picture. I just won’t get it.