So here's where the title of the blog comes into play. It takes a little while sometimes but my life tends to travel in a cycle. This statement may seem to cast my life in a negative light. As if I see my life as some sort of groundhog day experience where no matter how I live I end up at the same point. Couldn't be further from the truth. As I expressed in my hypothetical twitter account @irvingwash: "Life is like a bike, you are going in circles but forward at the same time. @irvingwash." For those of you wondering who is Washington Irving, just know the US army is right there with you #Catch_22.
Actually this I just created this twitter account for myself it is no longer hypothetical.
Pro: I can know the opinions of NBA players and Kanye West
Con: I kind of feel like I'm a tool of the system even if my address is literary
Pro: Now I can use hashtags in their natural environment. Also any thoughts worth thinking ought to be boiled down to 160 characters or less. Preferably tweeted by a moody celebrity
Con: I don't have an audience
Pro: I already have one follower
Con: I have no idea who it is.
Pro: She has really good looking legs.
Con: Combine previous con and pro. I think I'll block her. I'd be flattered except my picture is of a toaster. Maybe she just wants to butter me up.
Anyways now that I've created a twitter account to share my brilliant one liners with long legged women before I block them. Just to reassure my mother who is reading this, I don't talk to strangers still.
As I was saying. My life tends to travel in cycles. Fitting cause yesterday I went on a bike ride up at Alta ski resort. I loved it. As I was out on my own riding up and down getting that combination of adrenaline and endorphins, I realized that I was having a moment of zen. A moment where all was coming together. It was a completion of my latest round of zen, motivation, scramble, and decomposition.
Zen is a state when you feel completely happy with who you are and where you are going. It is not to say that you are not happy at other times but rather zen is in the culmination of other moments. It is a balance between achievement and acceptance. It is not a stationary state however but one that requires movement forward experiencing new things. The last state of zen I had was at some point on the West Coast Baseball Tour, I had previously gotten through a successful semester and was surrounded by people I cared about experiencing new things.
This edenic state though isn't meant to last but rather to act as a spring board. As we move forward we take on new challenges. Zen morphs to motivation in which we challenge ourselves and move forward. Motivation is all about decisions, and doing that which is out of our comfort zone. We identify needs and try to meet them. Coming off the baseball tour I had hurdles to meet. The motivation phase was a brief yet necessary moment where one decides to hold through the scramble to come
And the scramble is what ultimately follows. Challenges are not simply met and achieved. In stepping forward one is inevitably thrust into new ground. The scramble isn't simply a question of will. I have a strong will I like to think but there is so much more. The ability to accept failure, lean on others, find joy in little things. Life isn't easy during this period but it isn't inherently unhappy either. See my first blog post for a good example of the scramble.
Next is decomposition. Going home was the most recent moment of decomposition for me. When one gains or forces the luxury to take a breather decomposition occurs. This is natural process. I didn't blog about that moment because it is a moment when things that are naturally important boil to the top from the previous displacement of the scramble. For me I discovered how much my family means to me. In this moment I made an effort, without conscious thought, to strengthen my ties with my parents, my brother and sister. I thought about where I wanted to go in life, and how I could get there. I took the time necessary to recover from the energy fretted away as I worked before. It isn't all deep though, there is joy in the frivolous as well. Example: I watched the NBA playoffs and loved it. I was laying the foundation for the next moment of zen.
I can have moments of each phase in each. I definitely felt zen as I sat around the dinner table back home. I scrambled as I came home and tried to find my balance with classes starting again. But all in all I can generally group large segments of time in these phases. There is also a fifth phase called funk. That is the bad funk not the good funk. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Well that's the philosophy ground work... I realize more and more that this blog is a compilation of how I think and feel rather than a news feed. It is probably boring off anyone who reads it but that is okay, I'm not sure anyone will bother to read to this point as is, except Mom. I love you mom! If someone else made it this far I think highly of you as well. But at the end of the day, I write it for myself. The next entry will be a little less spacey and chronic (@Dr. Dre) and a little more chronological. Until then the Nate Billings @bbillinassociat tweets "Is/could electricity be a form of gravity?" I'm already in love with twitter,
Peace love, and chasing zen
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