Knowledge and Understanding

There's an old rather depressing remark that comes out whenever someone is lamenting their lot in life and it usually goes "It never gets any easier". It is said in many ways, tasted in many flavors, and pokes an already sore nerve.

Oddly (or not so oddly, one supposes), it turns out that as you get older you really understand it. When you're a child and you are tired of going to school, it never gets any easier. When you are an adult getting your first job and working 20 hours a week, it never gets any easier. When you go to college and have more exams on tougher classes, it never gets any easier. When you work your 40 hour weeks, do your own laundry, cook your own food, and pay your own bills it never gets easier.

It's funny how this phrase - so simple, so effectual, can be lost on us at every step of the way, every moment, such that it may always be a hindrance to us on reminder. We know it, we've lived it, our lives never become less complex. It is only in the barest moments of self-reflection does the realization come to us, and then is gone until we complain beside a witty friend.

There is a saying in Buddhism, "Don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon." It is a fairly simple idea and explains the flaw in our spoken language. We tell each other, explain to one-another, the wisdom we have gleaned and expect transformation. People will always say that things never get easier because it is simple to say it. But those words are not enlightenment, we have done nothing more then point at the moon while the other person looks to our finger.

This is also the logic behind meditating on koans and focusing on experiencing life in the moment. We are trying to teach ourselves to see the moon rather then watching for the fingers that point to it. We want to be a part of the reality of things rather then the representations that are before us.

So when you are told something, or something is explained to you, think on it and ponder the thing that is being spoken of instead of the words that are being used to convey it. Listen mindfully to those ideas, and understand them. Knowledge is simple, understanding is complex.

Hello again!

Okay, wow, so it's been a while huh?

I always considered myself to be really careful with things, finances, my words, my actions, all that other stuff. I like to temper my optimism with realism and sometimes that can come up and bite me in the ass. I try to take on like ten things at once and keep up with it for the briefest flash in the saucepan and next thing I know I got nothing again.

A few years ago after a breakup my cousin invited me to the gym and I got really into it. I had just spent a lot of time losing weight and I was excited to be working out, which was awesome. I spent many days of my week out with that group of people and lifting, we went to some shows in the city and off in some further away places and it was grand. At some point I picked up the guitar again and started taking lessons, and a bit further down the line started rock climbing and joined a book club. Everything was in balance, and I was improving myself in a wide arc. I could have mastered all those things over the course of a few years if I had the single-mindedness to continue with everything at once.

I met a very special lady, we hit it off and have been together ever since. We go on all sorts of adventures (some of which I wrote about in this blog - Ireland is a biggie!)

I picked up my writing more frequently. I'd never tried to give it structure before, instead working only when I fancied to on an impulse. So I picked two days a week and started writing on those days, which further locked down my weeks.

I overextended. six out of seven days a week I was spoken for and people were asking me to make time on the remaining day. The stress of all that was too much.

I finally hit the tipping point though, something had to give. I stayed with rock climbing but was running out of time to work out, so I toned it down to just running. I kept up with the guitar but I wasn't watching my finances. When I realized it I started cutting back - the lessons went but I tried to keep it up. I injured myself running and never really got it back together. I occasionally break out and go for one and realize I'm pushing it too far too fast and get frustrated. I promise myself I'll give more and never get around to it.

Life is hard. It's not supposed to be easy, not by a longshot. We all do the best we can, but at the end of the day we all have a limit. I push mine in leaps and bounds and sometimes need to take a break. It seems like I hit that point with this blog as well, and let it languish.

I'm going to try to resurrect it soon - I've got plenty of other projects I'd like to explore and work on. I'm especially interested in Buddhism at the moment, in addition to financial stuff I was going to explore in another blog but I realized I didn't have the experience to really work on that and give advice. I might need to consolidate and just give my personal experience in the areas of finance, spirituality and entertainment from a central spot. That doesn't jive with my original plan - that this be a blog for my writing - but I don't produce at the rate that a blog like this needs to be relevant.

So I'll be back, and will be posting things differently.

Oil Changes

Anyone that knows me well knows I'm not all that handy. I most recently got a reminder when I busted my motorcycle mirror at the stem (bear combat) and tried to replace it. Despite the realization I could have used a socket wrench with a 6in extension to save me 2 hours of work, the actual disassembly and reassembly of the dash went fine... except that I didn't tighten one of the mirror nuts enough and it ejected while I was riding a few days after my 'repair'.

I don't want to go on a tangent, but I feel it's important to note I'm terribly lazy and it's still an issue. Anyway, I finally decided it was about damn time to get my 1000 mile checkup (at 1,150 miles) so I went to call my dealership/mechanic...

They are closed. Like super closed. So closed that the old building is being used to sell "As Seen On TV" shit.

So I turned to some friends, then coworkers for a bike mechanic. The leads didn't pan out so I ran to the source of all solid advice: the internets. I posted on the r/Motorcycle reddit and was informed that the 1,000 mile maintenance isn't anything technical, just an oil change (important for a new motor), tire pressure checks and tightening shit. I thought, "I can tighten shit! I check tire pressure! What's all this about oil though?"

Bear in mind the last thing I wanted to do after the (ongoing) mirror fiasco was get too involved with maintenance. If I'm anything I'm contradictory and as such I commenced youtubing and googling.

Autozone nearby claimed they had the parts I needed so the girlfriend and I piled into my car and made a quick run over that weekend. Surprise surprise though, someone fibbed. The attendant was a good guy and told me of a nearby Autozone and Advance that carry motorcycle stuff. Still annoyed at the 'zone I punched us over to Advance and found all my stuff.

In the morning I went out with my pan, oil, oil filter, oil filter wrench, and acquired my tool kit from the seat storage. I was ready.

My girlfriend meandered out to watch. I suspect she wanted either to see me sensationally burn myself while ruining my engine block and/or to make snide comments about how little I knew about what I was doing. And she fulfilled her quota on the latter many times over while I struggled with "righty-tighty lefty-loosey" (Protip: If the screw is upside down, it's backwards) and socket wrench operation.

Pictured left - Celebratory whiskey that happens to be proper color of oil, right - my oil

But my bike is purring like a kitten! I've learned a lot and I'll never have to pay for another oil change for my bike.

I spent all of $30 for all the supplies but took away some good stuff.
1) Doing your own maintenance is cheap
2) Knowing you did what you were supposed to is nicer then wondering if a mechanic is honest
3) Girls are not particularly impressed by oil changes
4) Riding a bike after you've worked on it is awesome

Twilight and the "Reading Decline"

[Ed note: I have not nor do I plan to read the twilight series. It's not because I'm counter-culture or anything, I just don't care for romance novels. I have read one of Stephanie Meyer's other works and think that she has great potential as a writer of science fiction and I wish her the best of luck in the future]

I was putzing around reddit.com's r/writing subreddit (Instead of actually writing) and came across a very interesting series of comments about the Twilight story and its success. People are surprised and appalled by the success of the series because of a laundry list of complaints; the characters are one-dimensional, the conflict can be resolved simply within the setting, it sets a bad example for tweens, whatever.

No one pisses and moans when a war strategy book appeals to a wide audience (Ender's Game), or when wizard stories grab children's imaginations (Harry Potter), or when a group of children murders one-another in cold blood for 3 books (The Hunger Games). But god forbid if you grab some tween attention from a book with some plot holes.

Look, girls and woman are going to dream about their perfect romance. If they're channeling it through a sparkly vampire, whatever. Stephanie Meyer created a work in the public space that became popular, and pioneered it into a series of movies that did well at the box-office because the books were popular. That is a huge achievement. It may not be the best writing, the characters might not be incredibly deep or interesting, but she got people reading. How can anyone, as a reader, be mad about that?

According to the National Endowment of the Arts research paper Reading on the Rise (2009), American adult readers have grown almost 7% since 2002 with the 18-24 age bracket growing by 3.4 million readers. Mind you that the first Harry Potter came out in 1997, the next two books in 1999, next in 2000, then 2003, 2005, and the last in 2007.

This is the first time the NEA has seen growth in readership in 20 years. Previously we were looking at a loss of 20% of readers since 1982. Now it's only 10%, and hopefully it will improve from there with more 'blockbuster' young adult lit (whether or not people deign it to be acceptable). On a personal note, I'm excited to see the reading of fiction is responsible for nearly half of the increase.

Readers and non-readers in the US are now to polarized groups each at near 50% of the population. It's an interesting demographic change!

Also note that poetry is in steep decline. Sorry guys! :(

Literature (yes literature) like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games are going to feed adult readers. It may not be in earth-shattering numbers but it will be. And as a writer and an advocate of literature, I just want people to be reading and consuming content.

If it starts at Twilight, maybe it will evolve to be Nietzsche some day. Maybe someone will find, from reading about sparkly vampires, something people identify with having more 'meat' like the book I am Legend. I think we need to stop attacking people for their taste and just be glad they're licking.

A writer can dream, can't he?