Coloring Outside the Lines

There have been countless questions that have been muling about my brain housing group and unfortunately my hamster powering the wheel has been working over time. I'm hoping that this will give the poor little guy a break! None of these questions seem out of the ordinary, but still something that I've continually thought about...

Why are there less and less 20 and 30 somethings attending church?
Why do we find more and more people not staying at one company for 20-30 years and instead doing 5 year stints at various places or switching careers?
Why are we waiting longer to get married or not even marry at all?
Why do we color in the lines anyway?

Because these institutions have ultimately FAILED us.

One must not look too far to see the failures of society's institutions that are parents trusted ever so dearly...
... Our failing economy
.... Companies declaring bankruptcy and laying off countless workers to offset costs
..... Divorce rates almost equal if not higher within Christians than their non-Christian counterparts
....... The religious hierarchy that elevates the religious leader(s) to a holier than thou over their general population

The world and our future is uncertain to us young adults trying to forge our on path in this world.

I'm hesitant about staying within a certain place or certain job for 20 years.
I've been deeply hurt more by "Christians" and the church more so than my other friends because they are trying to live like they're already in Heaven and have no bearing on the world around them.

I hate society's rules on how you have to accomplish A, B, and C in order for you to get to point D.
Except what I realize is that as you are trying to accomplish tasks A, B, and C, point D is getting further and further away from you. There will always be something else or another menial task that you must complete as you're slowly selling your soul to get some tangible item.

These menial tasks I feel are society's rules to keep us contained. To keep us under control. Hinders creativity. And ultimately suffocates us under the meaningless things which ultimately only make the rich richer and keeps us all in check.

Sure, corporations, the government, and churches promise the world on a silver platter to us with a liter of puppies...
BUT... what they fail to tell you is that you have to play their game. You have to color within the lines and make things pretty for someone else before they can say you can move on.

I look at my life and see just the failures and misgivings of all the times I've tried to color within the lines and make my picture all nice and pretty, only to be given a stern disapproval that it wasn't supposed to look THAT way and why not try it a different way. Oh... let's now try it this way to see what it looks like, which is typically code for, "I have no idea what else to give you... so this is busy work." Or after you finish the 12 steps to Heaven, read the 289 steps to becoming a disciple... don't worry, once you're done with that we'll give you the 6,724 ways you can bring a person to Christianity.

We do all these things for a society or an institution which ultimately fails us. But why? To get some unattainable item that will always be ever so fleeting whether it be money, recognition, power, or whatever else?!

No... I refuse.

This is why I do not believe I need to do this particular project this way.
This is why I believe that I don't need to keep going to church in order to say that I'm a good person/Christian
This is why I refuse to color in the lines.

Seattle Freeze

I've been banging my head up against a social ice cube as it seems ever since moving to Seattle a few months ago.

Recently I discovered this phrase called the Seattle Freeze, a phrase that describes a local public consensus that Seattle and or it's outlying areas are generally not friendly, asexual, introverted, socially aloof, clickish or strictly divided through its social classes, thus making the city/ area difficult to make social connections on all levels (thank you UrbanDictionary).

It's not that Seattle is not friendly... on the surface, Seattlites are the friendliest people that I have ever met...

They will hold doors for you.
Offer to take your shopping cart.
Make a joke about how long the line at Trader Joe's is.
Smile and wave at you during traffic.
But... it's all painfully impersonal.

Now, I consider myself to be very outgoing, have a good personality, and enjoy meeting new people and trying new things. The local people are polite, but are generally closed. They're easy to get along in day-to-day interactions. However, the attitude of "Have a nice... somewhere else" which dominates this city makes it nearly impossible to make friends.

Every Friday I get asked, "Oh hey! What're you doing this weekend?" And I respond, "Umm... not too sure, just moved here a few months ago..." trying to not act too desperate hoping for an invitation to do something... ANYTHING! The extent of the conversation finishes after they give me a string of restaurants, festivals, or a new coffee shop to try and tell me that they'll see me on Monday. Oh wait... Can we friends?! No? Damnit.

Seattlites say, "Let's do something sometime..." which typically means, "Let's never do anything ever...." I've found that whenever I try and ask people to actually go DO something, the looks I get in return are just blank stares or the face that displays the emotion that they have just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world. What?! You ACTUALLY want to do something?!

People here don't like or dislike you, they're completely indifferent. Maybe it's because of the 9 months of gray skies and perpetual spitting mist, the massive Microsoft and Boeing technie introverts, the smallness of Seattle, having about 50% of the population that lived in the outlying suburbs/cities and have not branched outside their childhood friends, or maybe the fact that norms of social interaction just don't pertain to Seattle.

Seattle has transplants from all over the United States and I've found other fellow transplants from Colorado, Oregon, California, and Arizona that have experienced the cold shoulder of the Seattle Freeze. Some that have stayed here long enough have lost their willingness to branch out to other people and just hide away during the gray season and they seem content, but inwardly depressed.

So how do I as a new person in Seattle make new friends? Good question... I'll get back to you on that if I'm ever able to surpass this massive glacier that's in front of me.

Being uncomfortable

No one likes being uncomfortable. We hate it, we avoid it, we do everything to get out of it.

I've experienced my share of discomforts... being fired, messy breakups, staring at my bank account when it reads $0.00, being in 128 degree sweltering heat in Iraq, struggling with PTSD from my deployment, or tough track sessions where I'm just trying to make it through another endless circle.

Since moving to Seattle, I've been uncomfortable... my first time in a big city and going at it alone! With my life in sunny mid-America fading behind the rain and clouds of the Pacific Northwest, it's an uneasy and unnerving feeling...

My heart and mind keep trying to grasp something familiar or tangible, but rather fall back to fond memories of...

taking deep breaths of crisp mountain air during a tough swim set,
long rides that took me over the Continental Divide during the Colorado summer,
running in tow with Cam Dye at our Tuesday morning track sessions,
seeing friends out on the roads training diligently for their next event,
being on rooftops for happy hour drinks on Pearl Street,
and CU football games with the old college gang.

But... I know in my heart that in the end, these discomforts will only make me a better person and I'm experiencing life! Regardless of where I am, whom I'm with, or what I'm doing, when I'm uncomfortable, I'm challenged... and that's when I learn to live.

Life... truly begins at the end of our comfort zones.

Sunny in Seattle

The sun has finally come out! This is the view that I have just 3 short blocks from my downtown studio.

I've traded my sunshine filled days for a life here in the Pacific Northwest.

Seattle has it's own unique vibe, the people are down to earth, and the coffee is A M A Z I N G ! I was never too much of a coffee drinker, but now I find myself drinking copious amounts of this black gold. There is no shortage of coffee in this city.

I recently had Top Pot donuts and they are quite possibly the most delicious donuts ever. It's like a party on your palate! I love the inside of their Queen Anne shop and they have now become my weekly Saturday morning routine. Early morning swim and then straight over to Top Pot for an old fashioned glazed donut and an americano... and how convenient, it's on the way home!




So far I'm loving my new Seattle home and this new city living!

Crackberries and dumbPhones

I've always wondered why they called a Blackberry a "Crackberry..."

Now I know why... After only having mine a few short months, I now have Facebook, Twitter, work e-mail, Gmail, and pretty much the world at my finger tips. I constantly find myself browsing through Twitter, replying to e-mails, writing e-mails, or when I'm bored flipping Facebook open to just read about someone talking about how their cat ate a muffin.

Yup... this is my digital life and now my mobile office.

However, I find that these phones hinder us from actually experiencing the world around us. Instead of carrying on a conversation, we hide behind our phones, staring blankly and diligently tweeting or updating our Facebook statuses. When we want to avoid an awkward situation, we whip out our phones and pretend like we're answering a text. Or when we're bored, we decide to shoot birds violently through the air at green pigs in fortified structures.

Have our phones made us forget what it's like to interact with one another on a personal level?

Why does everything have to be online these days?

Have we forgotten those relationships around us because we're buried in our phones?

I think so... Put down your crackberry and shut off your dumb phone and take a look at the world around you. Talk with somebody, don't text them. And realize, that the world is not going to spontaneously implode if you don't answer that tweet or facebook message right away.

Ahhhhh.... much better, right?

Trading Sun for Shade

Well... I finally made it to Seattle. After a brief 6-week stint in the Nevada desert, I made it to the promised land! It's a weird feeling... packing up everything that I own in the back of my car and driving to a new city and a new life. I just moved into my downtown studio apartment and this is my first experience living on my own.

It's an exciting new prospect and the craziest feeling in the world. Living in a small space has it's challenges. I purged almost 4 boxes worth of things since I've been here. The one box that you perpetually move from place to place and never open, but you know exactly what's inside, I finally opened it!

I found chemistry labs from freshman year in college, ProLink bike chain lube, an Xterra Triathlon swim cap, AP Statistics notes from HIGH SCHOOL, a paystub from Outback Steakhouse in 2002 (can't believe I worked for that little...), and some Splenda. I have no idea why I kept all that stuff around.

It's a great feeling getting rid of stuff I've been carrying around for years is refreshing. I've made a promise to myself that I wouldn't get any more things in my place until I got rid of things of the old.

My studio apartment has remained relatively bare and I'm lacking the necessary funds to just throw money at the problem. All that is in my apartment are my bikes, an air mattress, a camper stool, and some artwork. Oh well, I intend to make my space me and my own home. I plan on living simply with the things I need, but with style...

Shake The Dust.

It's been just over a month since I packed the back of my car and drove out west for a new opportunity in life. It's been a wild ride... There's nothing like the feeling of packing up everything that you own in the back of your car, leaving your community of friends, and the place that you called "home" and forging into this great world.

It's been hard being away from what I call home.
But...
Sometimes we must sacrifice the good for a chance at greatness.


This excerpt from Anis Mojgani's "Shake The Dust" is yet a simple message, but one to take at heart...

<<<< So grab this world by its clothespins and shake it out again and again and jump on top and take it for a spin and when you hop off shake it again for this is yours.

Make my words worth it, make this not just another poem that I write, not just another poem like just another night that sits heavy above us all.

Walk into it, breathe it in, let is crash through the halls of your arms at the millions of years of millions of poets coursing like blood pumping and pushing making you live, shaking the dust.

So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be.>>>>


Flux... then shake the dust...