Wisdom

This year has been very, very, very long

And it's not even over yet.

If it could be summed up in one word, it would be Wisdom.

This year:

I moved out of my old apartment in Santa Barbara and into a new one.
I decided to spend the Summer at home in Orange County.
I have learned a lot about my family.
I decided to help my dad start his new business.
I couldn't be happier about my dad’s marriage—Dean and Christine are perfect for each other.
I traveled up and down the coast of California and Oregon visiting cool people and seeing some of the most beautiful places on the planet.
I went to Big Sur for the first time.
I went to Yosemite for the first time.
I went to New York for the first time and I sense that that city will have an important part in my future.
I lost the house of my childhood and moved out of the neighborhood I grew up in.
I lost an important and close family friend.
I came closer than ever before finding out what I want to do with the rest of my life.
I've spent a lot of time alone, a lot of time with new people, and probably not enough time with old friends.
I have learned to trust my instincts more than ever.


More than anything else, I have spent a lot of time giving my mind a break and getting my thoughts in order.


I have learned to accept more that I cannot change, and changed much that I can, and I have gained more wisdom to know the difference.


As the year draws to a close, I can't help but feel that one issue remains unresolved. Why do some people allow the slightest things to get in the way of their relationships with their friends and family? I try very hard to balance everything in my life, and part of that balance is not taking sides in feuds between family members and friends. Isn't that the ideal? Of course I will always defend my friends and family if someone else were to come after them in any way, but when it comes down to it, I don't understand why some people are completely okay with living a life that's a lie. Honesty is important for any healthy relationship: secrecy and backstabbing will surely divide any family.

So why let all of the pain continue?

Somewhere down the line, we will all die. We do not know when this will happen, and we do not know how it will. We can die with a clean conscience or with a guilt ridden mind—the choice is ours.

So much conflict is based around people refusing to admit that they were wrong in the past. Pride can bring down any house. It's far better to be humble and admit and learn from your mistakes.

This is an ideal I am constantly working toward.

We are all guilty of making mistakes at times, but it is realizing them and learning from them that is a true sign of wisdom. Work towards our dreams, live honest lives, and surround ourselves with the ones we love and who love us. If we didn't, what would be the point of it all? Slothing through life day by day, we would never achieve what we wanted to, and go to the grave with the secrets that ruin our lives.

We have a limited amount of time on this earth.

Let's make the best of it.

Let’s make this next year one filled with achieving dreams and living life to the fullest.

That’s what I have scheduled in my planner.

Noise

Noise:
It never stops.

Motion
Movement
Filtered through my ears.

I cannot help but think of those who suffer

I cannot sleep
I am not tired
Yet I feel I must go to bed

Rise again tomorrow
At the hour I should

But I never do.
And it never feels the way I imagine.

The noise continues.

Who Wants to Buy This House For Me?

Why, yes. I would love a Neutra house in Pacific Palisades.





http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/10/neutras_troxell_house_hits_the_market.php#neutra-3

Towards an Organic Snackitecture

The Modern snack has failed. We must find an snack that is functional and humanizing.

Cleantech Corridor Competition

Definitely going to SCI-Arc this month to check this out:




Original Post:

http://www.dwell.com/slideshows/winners-cleantech-corridor-competition.html?slide=1&c=y&paused=true

Subscription: Renewed

Two years of Dwell coming my way.



http://www.dwell.com/

Oh, and two years of Vogue, too.



http://www.vogue.com/

Happiness delivered to my doorstep? Yes, please.

No Regrets

Live life with no regrets. That's what they always say, right?

Well once again I've really learned the value of an idea through my own experiences.

This Summer has done many many things for me and deciding to leave my former job, Santa Barbara, and my life there for a few months has really paid off. I find myself at the end of this Summer a little bit closer to knowing who I am, knowing who the people around me are, and what I want out of life.

A lot of things changed this Summer.

I left Orange County a few years back with the goal that I would never come back. That's why making the decision to come home was difficult for me—but it was only for a few months. It's not as if I'd been disconnected from my family and never wanted to return: it was really all about the place. I hated Orange County with a passion when I left it. The people, the culture, and the way of life do not mesh with me very well. Being in Santa Barbara for two years reminded me a few of the reasons I liked Orange County. Despite it being undesirable in so many ways, the weather, the lifestyle, and the people hadn't changed much: basically, if I ever wanted to go back, I'd know what to expect and my family would always be there. Being back in Orange County this Summer reminded me, once again, that I absolutely cannot function there for extended periods of time. I spent most of this Summer working, driving, and dealing with hot weather. My life felt dry, boring, and monotonous. The few good experiences I had in Orange County were brief and with my family. All the other good times this Summer were in LA, Santa Barbara, Tehachapi, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Eureka, and Portland. My family is the only reason I'll go back to Orange County... and I think after this Summer, I'll probably never go back for very long.

This Summer I learned a lot about the people around me. Whether or not I really give UCSB any credit, I have grown a lot as a person over the last few years I've spent in Santa Barbara. With this new perspective I've gained, it was strange to re-experience many of the things I did in childhood as an adult. Basically, I am extremely lucky and thankful to have a great father, mother, and brother. The rest of the family can be complicated, but there's no need stressing over trying to keep up with everything and solve everyone's problems—I have a big family.

This Summer, I moved out of the house I grew up in. The driveway, the yard, the front gate, the living room, the tiles, the fruit trees, the fireplace, my bedroom, the memories. I really didn't think it'd be difficult after not living there for so long, but it's amazing how attached us humans can become to a place. I'll never wash my car on the driveway again, or take my dogs on a walk in that park, or look out across the street when it rains and watch the gutters fill up with water until it looks like it's going to flood. I'll never get to finish painting the front gate, or putting on the baseboards. That part of my life is over.

This Summer was a transition for a lot of people.

This Summer I learned what I really want. I want to create. I want to love. I want meaning in my life. I want to be honest.

I will not tolerate negative energy in my life.

I also need to learn to forgive people that just don't understand but have true intentions. Life is too short to not forgive the people that matter—but sometimes there are people that aren't worth finding reasons to forgive. And that's okay.

I was thinking recently about all the things I'd like to go back and change in my life that would have made things easier. But would I be the same person I was today if those things didn't happen to me? Definitely not. Now I am happy for my past—all the good things and the bad things. What is laying in the not-so-far-off future makes it all seem worth it. None of the bad things matter when they've made you a better person and given you something to look forward to.

Basically, it feels like this huge chunk of my life is coming to an end, and I'm pretty sure that chunk is childhood. My world has been pretty small up until this Summer, but now, it feels like it has expanded exponentially. The future is now, and it couldn't feel better. I am truly an adult now, and I'm proven that.

I'm thankful to everyone who has helped me get to where I am. Now it's time to create my own life and achieve what I really want to. For the first time, it doesn't feel very far away.

Paths

Do you ever look back at your life and wonder, "how did things end up this way"?

I have.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd end up in the exact same position I am now. Things have changed that I never thought possible. But here I am.

Some things didn't turn out how I wanted them to. And some things turned out much better.

So many people have come and gone. So many dreams have waxed and waned.

The uncertainty I was feeling not too long ago is gone. My future is at my fingertips. But somehow there's an emptiness to it.

How was the journey here? Who did I hurt? Who did I love? Did I do the right thing?

Hell, I don't know. Can anyone ever be so sure of what life's going to throw at them? I certainly tried to do the right thing the whole time. Can I say for certain that I did?

No.

All those people that you just fell out of touch with for one reason or another but wish you could still talk to. All those important and difficult decisions you made. All those relationships you maintained. All that you worked for.

All the bridges you built. All the bridges you burned.

All that stress that you wish you could have made go away. All the times when you knew you could have been doing something better with your time. All the times you didn't understand why someone acted the way they did. All the times you made the wrong decisions and tried to make things right. All the things you're not proud of. All the hearts you broke you didn't mean to... and all the times your heart was broken.

Did you do the right thing?

I really don't know if I did.

One thing I know for sure:

I tried.

From "Recollections of Early Childhood"

"What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind..."

-William Wordsworth

"Why Orwell Matters"

"But what [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that 'views' do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them"

From Why Orwell Matters, by Christopher Hitchens

Mirror, Mirror...

"But genius, and even great talent, springs less from the seeds of intellect and social refinement superior to those of other people than from the faculty of transforming and transposing them. To heat a liquid with an electric lamp requires not the strongest lamp possible, but one of which the current can cease to illuminate, can be diverted so as to give heat instead of light. To mount the skies it is not necessary to have the most powerful of motors, one must have a motor which, instead of continuing to run along the earth's surface, intersecting with a vertical line the horizontal which it began by following, is capable of converting its speed into lifting power. Similarly, the men who produce works of genius are not those who live in the most delicate atmosphere, whose conversation is the most brilliant or their culture the most extensive, but those who have had the power, ceasing suddenly to live only for themselves, to transform their personality into a sort of mirror, in such a way that their life, however mediocre it may be socially and even, in a sense, intellectually, is reflected by it, genius consisting in reflecting power and not in the intrinsic quality of the scene reflected."

-Marcel Proust: Within a Budding Grove. Taken from Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens.

Onions

In my recent culinary adventures and training, I've learned the hard way to always peel the outer layer off an onion when you're cooking it. Don't ask how I didn't know that at first—I don't really follow recipes, because I like to figure things on my own.

Similarly, I've learned to peel off the outer layer of everything else in my life. I can't quite figure out if I love it or if I hate it



I've encountered so much Philosophy and different ways of thinking in my life now academically that I'm beginning to apply it to everything in my life—subconsciously—whether I like it or not.

It's kind of like peeling an onion. Once you realize the difference in taste when you actually do the work of peeling the outer skin off, you never want to go back to leaving the skin on; however, you also notice imperfections more easily. If someone else forgets to peel the skin off all the way and you get a little piece of onion skin in your mouth, it's just not the same.

I've always been one to live in my head and analyze everything. But I'm seeing the world in a new way. It can be better, and it can be worse, but ultimately I feel as if everything just became a lot more intense. I will never look at anything the simplistic way that I used to. Once you see that there are multiple layers to everything, they don't go away.

Fade

One golden ray of light,
Shining through the oaks.
The Setting of the sun,
My bright day is dwindling—gone.

Never Been Better

Well life has certainly not been a downer lately. Things have been absolutely phenomenal the last few weeks.

I went on vacation with Cheyanne to camp in Big Sur. We drove up to Carmel for a day as well, and on a whim ended up ditching our Monday classes and going to San Francisco on Monday.

When I got back school was pretty hectic since I had done no work whatsoever over the weekend, but it was completely doable since I am now unemployed! It's amazing how easy it is to just be a student. I haven't been just a student since sophomore year of high school.

Spent some time with the family after that. I met my brother's girlfriend, and we all had dinner together, saw my mom, and hung out 'till the sun came up with some friends.

On top of this, the weather has been perfect for the last week! Best of all, the only schoolwork I have to do now is all upper division and for my major so it's fun, easy, and quick since I'm used to working full time, too. It's time to enjoy life!

In Flux

Sometimes life just hits you with those surprises and you're not really sure what to do. Sometimes you take a step back and you think about it and think about it and think about it...

That's what I normally do.

This time I just made a decision almost instantaneously. We'll see how it turns out this time.

Life is not going to be the same for a while.

Another Curveball

Life is so strange.

I can't seem to find the direction of my life lately, and right when I get settled in, I seem to be facing a new reality.

Hopefully this reality sticks for a while--I like it.

Funeral

I'm doing so much and I'm experiencing so much success and for the first time in my life that has corresponded with a lot of fun and rest at the same time. I have put in my work and now the good times are beginning to roll in many areas of my life. Work is not so stressful at the moment and things are under control, I am going where I want to go during my time off and getting to think about things I haven't had time to think about in a long time.

I had two three day weekends in a row, the first one planned, the second unplanned. The first one I spent in Tehachapi with Cheyenne relaxing and enjoying nature, something that I always enjoy doing.

On Thursday night I was in a strange feeling that I can't explain. I just knew something bad was going to happen. In the car on the way out to the desert I remember talking about death.

The next morning when my mom's name came up on my caller I.D. my stomach lurched. I couldn't pick up the phone because it was nearly dead, but I called from a land line to listen to her message and my jaw dropped.

I don't know what I believe in anymore. Maybe there is a god, but I don't know anything about him and I won't pretend to and maybe he has no interest in interacting with our lives whatsoever. I've never been one to believe in the supernatural or anything like that either, but somehow I knew that message from my mom would be about death.

And it was.




My second trip was for a very sad purpose, and I experienced for the first time in my life the true paradox of a funeral:

Here was this family friend that my parents were so close to, and now he's gone forever... and yet he had such a wonderful life and was such an amazing person that it still makes me smile to remember him. Of course the service was hard... but I have been isolated from my family for so long that it was amazing to see everyone together again. Some people I hadn't seen for almost ten years and then there were some people who hadn't even been in the same room since the 80s, or 90s.

The night that Bob died my parents were both there together even though they've been divorced for more than ten years and until recently haven't really talked to each other.

I pretty much owe my existence to Robert Queyrel, because without him, my parents wouldn't have even met. Even though I never knew him as well as I would have liked to and will now never get the chance, I've taken it upon myself to enjoy my life and do the things I've always wanted to do because I owe it to him to do that. It makes me sad that I couldn't be there for Bob when he died, but I'm glad that there were people there for him and that made the last years of hid life more enjoyable, my Mom being one of them. Seeing her example will forever have an effect on me.

Yesterday one of my friends told me that where her family was from in Africa, a funeral is a celebration of life. I've never really understood celebrations like this until now.

Life is so precious. If only we could all remember that on a day to day basis and not get caught up in the things that don't really matter. If only we could forget our emotions and sentiments for one minute to actually listen to what people are saying. If only we could be completely genuine about our feelings to each other. If only we could be ourselves and forget about what society wants us to do. If only we could forget about money and forget about our career paths and take a moment to enjoy each other's company--because these people will not be alive forever.

Starting now, I'm going to try my best to make sure all these things happen in my life. Of course I valued these things before, but I feel as if my life is at a huge turning point and Bob has been a big part of that.

Even though the funeral service is over and everyone has gone back home, I will never forget Robert Queyrel. It is true after all that people can live in our hearts forever.

Fog

Rain sprinkling as we descend--
Valley of dead trees.
Winter--trying to pretend,
That it's still in reign, pleas,

With blankets of green,
To let the cold continue.
Where I should have been,
I could not resist to think of you.

You are far--
Always on my mind.
The beauty around me is lost.
My mind covered it in frost.

Cold comfort,
Embrace of the dew.
Thick air stops me--
I am dead.

The fog is in your eyes,
In your voice.
My future--holds--
Choice.

I ascend once more.
The wildflowers begin to bloom.

Day Trip

Drove up to Cayucos, San Luis Obispo, and Cambria last Monday to escape Santa Barbara.

Had some fun with the camera.

Vista

I have better things to do,
Than to escape with you right now.
After all that we've been through,
I'm not quite sure how,

You still don't understand
That I don't have time for you.
And for all which I stand
I can't bring myself to hate you.

Clearer than ever before in life,
The sky lights up the darkness
that surrounds me--it is strife,
that I have overcome: softness:

The feeling in my heart when the waves knock me into the ground:
Destiny's flames now barely visible on the hillside.

Headshots, Round One

Favorites? 1,2,3,4, or 5?

Credit: http://cararobbinsphotography.tumblr.com/

PS:

Vote for me?

http://casting.benetton.com/users/78210-ianpatrickanderson

:)

Storm

Alone.

I come here every day.
Why do I bother?

I have nowhere else to go.

Nothing can compare to what I once had--
No cheap imitation can match it.

Instinct tells me to continue,
But my heart rips me the other direction.

I long for the day of my return.
Before then, everything else means nothing.

As I wait, my heart withers in the wind,
My soul washed away in the rain.

My Life

I get stressed out a lot.

I have a lot on my plate to take care of.

But I get the job done, and I do it well.

I work full time, and I go to school full time.

I like my job, and I'm an honors student, and planning on entering the departmental honors program as well.




I don't have it that bad.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed

But then I buckle down, get the job done, and life continues.

I live a comfortable life in Santa Barbara.

I have wonderful friends, and a caring family.

I have a lot to look forward to.

Wall

When you visit the most amazing city on earth and are taken away from it in the blink of an eye, it is hard to return to life as it is normally.

Ever since I've come back from Paris, nothing seems to be quite as good.

I have been insanely busy. Perhaps more so than ever before: or at least in a more painful way than ever before. A few people have left from work, and consequentially I have more responsibility than before while simultaneously trying to turn the store around completely and make it better than before. I maintained my straight A's last quarter and that goal is seeming like it will be harder to achieve right now.

I can't take it anymore in so many areas of my life and I'm stuck. I don't know where to go and I don't know who I'm going with. Every road seems to lead to a dead end and while I stay indecisive, I'm just going to end up hitting the wall that separates the roads. While last quarter I could barely tolerate the workload, now I am being pushed over the edge by my new responsibilities. The things that were a given in my life are becoming harder to deal with and I am increasingly stressed out with a decreasing ability to deal with this stress. I'm tired, apathetic, and unmotivated most of the time, and while I relax to try and alleviate this pressure, the work just builds up.

And for now I'm getting a lot closer to that wall. I can almost taste the brick and my nose is starting to bleed.