they might be giants. i've read that children, when they begin their chess careers, immediately know how far they are able (and unable) to take their skills. unlike most activities, where hope springs eternal, chess kids know from an early age whether or not they are capable of being a grandmaster. i'm not sure the reasoning behind this, but it's interesting nonetheless. after all, what kid with a basketball doesn't think he'll grow up to become the next michael jordan? why is it that children realize they cannot become the next kasparaov, the next capablanca, even when they've barely scratched their talents? is the answer "honesty?" is it because young chess players realize that they cannot see past a certain barrier when they play? and that as much as they train, they'll never have that magical "it" that'll enable them to advance to the uppermost levels of chess?

i feel like that kid starting out in chess. i see the limits already, even if they are off in the distance. i think as we age, we grow more aware of what we're good at and what we're not. when i see the work of legendary writers (or even above average ones), i know that i'll never be capable of producing that level of work. you don't just become a kundera, a gibran or a calvino. you either have it or you don't.

so what do chess children do when they realize they've reached their upper limit? they stop playing chess of course. they pursue other interests. they take up baseball, math, violin and you know, college. chess becomes a hobby or a skill, they give up hopes of ever becoming a professional. but what happens if they wanted chess to become their profession? simple, they realize they can't. so they give up on that dream and pursue another.

however, what if you want your profession to be something that you can already sense your skill cap? do you quit? do you forge on? do you take solace in the fact that thousands of other people way worse than you have "made it?"

i don't think you encounter this in most industries. when you're in business, rarely do you say to yourself, "well, compared to richard branson and mark cuban i suck, so i'm gonna quit right now." there's a whole lot of leeway for suckage in most industries. actually, this works in every industry i guess. as an artist, you don't have be a van gogh to succeed. in fact, you don't even have to do your own work, you can just ape other artists' styles and "succeed."

so really, what is there to complain about? there is no do without try. so that's what you gotta do, give it the old college try. don't be contained by your inhibitions, use them to free yourself. after all, i'll bet dostoyevsky never had a blog...

motown philly back again. they still got it. maybe nathan morris, wanya morris and shawn stockman never lost it, but when we brought up "boys ii men concert in three weeks, you in?" the reception was not as effusive as you'd like. except for from the galvez of course, who's a boys ii men concert veteran.

so when boyz-2-men hit the stage decked out in classic run-dmc clothes, i was a bit skeptical. were they about to pull some fast "hard hitting hip hop" switcheroo? for my money, they'd better not stray far from the car game, suburban jam stuff they got famous for. it didn't help my confidence that wanya looked like he had swallowed michael mccary and hid him in his pleather jump suit.

but all my fears were for naught as soon as the boys started singing. wanya, i don't care how much you weigh, or how long it takes you to get up from the bended knee position, your voice is amazing. slim? who knew you weren't just good for the high parts. it seemed like slim was actually the leader of the group, something you'd never know from watching the videos and reading interviews. nathan morris? um, nice moustache. michael mccary? where were you man? they made no mention of your absence and i had to dig deep on the internet to find out that you had retired not due to throat cancer, but back problems.

concerts are pretty much amazing when the group in question sticks with their bread and butter. bring on the hits boys... yesterday, on bended knee, water runs dry, end of the road, motown philly... boys ii men have maybe ten mega hits and i think they got most of them covered. when they did "a song for mama," they hinted at the audience, "we noticed that whenever we do this song, fans tend to get their moms on their cell phones." nice little subtle magic moment maker. whatever, it worked. people were calling their moms, handing the phones up to the boys -- and the boys would sing straight to someone's mom. pretty rad hunh?

the craziest moment of the night was when roses came out for "i'll make love to you" and every female on the main floor rushed the stage. *whoosh* it was like a vacuum. one second roses and music, next second girls everywhere. if you've ever seen koi fish swarm to food, you have some idea of what i'm talking about. throughout the concert, girls were intermittently going to the edge of the stage to touch/hold the boys' outreached hands but when the roses came out, every single chick who could run/walk/hobble/hopscotch/excuseme was up there screaming and hollering. ridiculous. but kinda awesome at the same time.

did i just have the best time ever at a boys ii men concert? you bet. would i admit that fact in a room full of guy co-workers? not a chance in hell. my reputation aside, the boys still got it man. they got that panty dropping power in spades. now where can we get some? do we have to eat more fried chicken? how's this work exactly?

boxer rebellion. are you an out of the box thinker? would you like to be? well, first off, how many out of the box thinkers do you know? me, i don't think i know any. i'm a bit tripped up by the term "out of the box thinker." i'm not sure what that means.

by definition, "out of the box thinker" would imply someone who does things differently. there's also a positive connotation to the term -- if you do things differently but in a stupid way, you're just an idiot, not out of the box. so using sporks might be different, but not necessarily advantageous enough to be deemed "out of the box."

personally, i'm a very in the box thinker. i need to connect the dots, i need to follow bread crumbs, i need to process things very linearly. there are no wild innovations coming from my end. i work with what i see and what i know. i'm squarely in the box.

so i'm trying to think of people who are totally out of the box. people who amaze with their crazy take on how to do something. but i can't really think of anybody. most of the people who strike me as almost out of the box thinkers are just importing ideas from another genre. is mixing and matching out of the box? is applying a fresh coat of paint to something out of the box?

do i not know any out of the box people because i'm too in the box to accept something out of the box? maybe i need to expand my search to famous people, because clearly there are lots of famous people who are affixed with the term "out of the box." is it depressing that i don't personally know any out of the box people?

or am i just depressed about being unoriginal?

"if i'm not mistaken, you've come back here to the house of loneliness and tears, to daddy downer and brother bummer, to come to some sort of decision about life, a life decision if you will."
-natalie portman, beautiful girls-

cruelty. manipulation. meaninglessness. it's that time again, that time in our lives when we have to figure out what our next move is. i have a friend who likes to ask "so, what are you doing next? what's your next move?" i have another friend who likes to ask "so, what're you working on?" sadly, both of the times when i was first confronted with this question, i had no answer aside from a short glib one. actually most of my responses to questions tend to be glib, but so what?

if you are within my age demographic (say twenty four to twenty eight), you're probably starting phase two of the post collegiate years. you've gone through your first couple of jobs, you've gotten a sampling of the disappointments that lurk in the adult world, you've asked yourself the "who are my friends, where are my friends, why did i major in this" questions. and now you're ready to make moves.

the problem is, the pressure is on. you're running out of time -- and parental patience -- to fuck up. in a few years you will be thirty, and at thirty, you're fully an adult. you can't fake for much longer that you're just a late blooming twenty year old. at thirty you better be something. so, you've done grad school, law school, peace corps, traveling, and you're facing the next big decision. whether it be to finally move to another city, to buck up and find a real career, to buy a house/condo, to find your soulmate, whatever. the decisions you're about to make now will be the ones that could really effect the rest of your life. i mean like, really effect. recess is over kids, time to get serious.

the elementary school question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" has been replaced by "what am i qualified to be now that i'm grown up?" and no, answering "i want to be a motherfucking hustler" just won't cut it anymore.

but before anybody is ready to make that next move, they always want to know "why? why am i here? what is the point of all of this?" well, i don't know much but i do know that i heart huckabees won't give you many answers -- a few funny moments and some questions, but no answers. but pretty much, doesn't that sum it all up? the best we can hope for in life is some funny moments and some semi-answers balanced by utter confusion, all of which may or may not link to something important. "i kind of get it, but not really...."

why ask why when it's easier to just say "ok, whatever, i'll just take the denver omelette." what is insufficient about an answer like, "there is no remainder in the mathematics of infinity - there is only the blanket." the meaning of our lives: overrated or something worth finding? i'm gonna go with overrated.

but still we strive to find answers. a whole nation of phase twos taking work sabbaticals, writing self analytical journal entries, reading into coincidences and motivations, all looking for the meaning of our lives. for what really? to make sure that our next move is the right move? it's not gonna happen, i've still got about five major fuck ups in me, at least. spread out over the rest of my life, that's not a terrible average, maybe one per decade? why strain myself over something that'll only affect me once every ten years -- true, with ripple affects that may or may not spread out to infinity and beyond but i'm willing to risk it.

i say fuck the meaning of it all and go with the hot one. when in doubt, always go with the hot one.

"surrounded by people but always alone." does this description fit you? do you feel like an island regardless of how many land masses are around you? what does that feel like? is it depressing? empowering? confounding? what thoughts do you think when you're mentally alone but physically crowded?

most times, the common conception is that if you're around a lot of people, you're not alone because other people are right there. it's like drinking alone at a bar, you are technically alone but also a part of something bigger. but sometimes i think that you can feel the most alone when sitting in the middle of a herd. you see a ton of people all getting along and interacting and "getting to know each other" and you think "hey, i can't do that, i don't feel that, i feel alone." as opposed to just feeling that way with a smaller group -- whom you can just write off as "a bunch of idiots i don't get along with anyway."

it sucks right? to feel alone? for anybody? i'm no expert on this issue because i try my darnest to always be around people. i never go anywhere by myself. i can barely stand being alone for more than half a day before searching someone out. i haven't quite figured out why exactly but i'm sure the reason for this habit will reveal itself to me eventually.

i have had some experience talking to people who feel exactly this way however. feeling like they're utterly alone even when all their friends are around them. is it a state of mind? is it the group that makes them feel this way or is it them? do some people just tend to stand out so much that they can never quite feel like one of the gang? i tend to think that it's the person making him/herself feel alone and apart, but then, why place the blame on the little guy?

and what usually happens when someone feels alone amidst a group of people? they test their theory by pulling back or pulling out, and seeing if anybody notices. they want to know if their presence is missed, or if indeed they really are as alone as they thought they were. which one do you think they'd rather have? being missed or confirmation that they really were alone?

busy little bee. oh what a grand feeling it is to be productive, to feel like you're contributing to society, to be working metaphorical shoulder to metaphorical shoulder with your fellow man. it's glorious at the end of each day to feel like you've accomplished something. people who feel satisfied lounging around all day, doing nothing, should be casatigated for their laziness. this message has been brought to you by the new me -- which, if these work hours continue, will soon be the dead me.

one of rand's central tenets is to be a productive member of a capitalistic society. i've failed at this pretty miserably for most of my life. but now with a ten to six (or ten to three am) job, am i suddenly vaulted into the lofty ranks of the productive? am i finally on the path toward rand's version of the ideal man?

well, it depends on how you define productivity doesn't it? i mean, i'm contributing my part to the billion dollar video game industry so even though i'm not actually doing anything for the betterment of mankind (saving lives, creating products, defending freedom, etc), it could be said that my small part is equal to anybody else's small parts. sure i'm not directly responsible for this game but aren't i as crucial a cog -- albeit an easily replaceable cog -- as a line worker at mcdonald's? without minimum wage fast food workers we would all starve; without me, you would all be gameless. the horror.

so the question is, can you be productive outside of the working world? is it a waste to spend your god given time here on earth doing absolutely nothing? we can all feel productive by doing tasks each day. we can cook, we can clean, we can work out, we can do laundry, we can check/respond to email, we can make our days full -- lists go a long way towards feeling (falsely) productive i've found.

but if we never step outside of our self contained me-o-spheres, are we actually being productive in the big picture scheme of things? i used to spend my days waking up well past noon, lounging around, eating some food, napping here or there, playing a little basketball, watching a few movies, and then getting on the computer to catch up on the events of the day before passing out around sunrise.

god i miss those days.

but was that being productive? wasn't i just being a colossal waste of space? don't i feel better working (relatively) hard each day, getting a paycheck, inserting myself into the big money making machine? i mean, isn't that why we're here? to drive society forward with our indomitable work ethics? i mean, is that why we're here? according to rand, yes. according to me? hell no.

give me lazy. give me beach days. give me naps, no getting up before noons and lists checked off with insignifcant accomplishments. give me clean laundry. give me my life back. dammit.

ch-ch-ch-change. when people change, usually we -- the peanut gallery -- evaluate the change as good or bad. someone who is immature and childish suddenly gains maturity and responsibility? good change. someone who goes from controlled partier to drunken lout? bad change. people change for a million different reasons.

but breaking bad habits, gaining new perspectives, buying a new wardrobe, all these things can't be pushed on another person. i'm not only the president but also a member of the idea that it's impossible to change unless you want to change. people can talk to you, they can present you with pie charts and voluminous statistics, they can chain you to the wall and threaten you, but nothing will change until you are ready and willing. outside factors won't change you, only you can prevent forest fires.

so why do we tend to look down on people who change primarily for significant others? someone's girlfriend doesn't like the way they conduct themself in public? suddenly they're watching what they say and working overtime to avoid offending people. a boyfriend hates the way they flirt with every male in the room? suddenly they're the demure princess of propriety. their girlfriend hates how they drink themself into oblivion anytime they're within hailing distance of a bar? suddenly mr lush is taking sips of soda water as friends toast to "world peace, nabisco, and the versatility of cotton."

but don't these changes seem inauthentic sometimes? because if someone is changing for another person, people around them might say that they're really not changing for themselves -- regardless of if the change is for the better. if you're straying away from the known perception of "you," then the blame is placed squarely on the significant other. denouncements of "where's the old billy?" and "man, he's totally different now, it's all her fault" are commonly heard. "we don't like it" is the common epithet uttered during these conversations.

but why? many/most changes are the result of external factors. growth can never occur in a vacuum. so what's the difference between "i'm quitting smoking because those truth ads are really effective" and "i'm quitting smoking because my partner hates it." nothing really. the end result it the same right?

notice though that often the person who's undergoing significant other change will subliminally defend their reason for changing. like "i've decided to stop slurping soup for sarah," and then as a disclaimer they offer up "but i'm also cutting down on my slurping because it's really rude." is having a significant other the tipping point towards change? is being simply rude not enough to induce non-slurpage? it should be enough, but sometimes it's not.

what i'm saying is that while there is no doubt that significant others are usually harbingers of change, the perception of those changes shouldn't be judged based on the motivation for the change, but on the end result.

this is what i say of course, but i don't personally believe it -- i'm very willing to flame people for significant other changes. my personal goal is to never change for someone else, especially a girlfriend. but you know, that probably contributes to my sinking candidacy for "best boyfriend ever." so really, what do i know?

all i'm talking about is the (mis)perception of what is good change and bad change, and how that relates to the motivation behind it.

everything but the girl. what do most people say when you ask them "what kind of music do you listen to?" the answer is, four out of five times, "everything but country." so explain to me, if you will, the popularity of country line dancing. girls love it. mention line dancing and i guarantee that most girls would be like "i'm in, sounds like fun." but it's not about the music right? i mean, eighty percent of people don't even like country. so there must be another reason behind why people (mostly girls) love line dancing.

my first hypothesis is that line dancing requires little to no skill. anyone can do it. it doesn't take a whole lot of coordination to step in, step out, step to the side, etc. it's cooler than square dancing, easier than the electric slide. this must be the appeal of line dancing. if all girls love to dance, but not every girl can dance, the solution is line dancing -- where every girl can look like a star. have you ever seen a bad female line dancer? i wouldn't know, since i've not been line dancing in awhile.

my only encounter with line dancing is through george, who used to date a chinese guy whose family owned a country bar/restaurant in el cajon. how that worked out i don't know. but for a few years during high school, george was country queen. and since we shared cars and acoustic hallways, i was subjected to some twinkling country tunes. hell has a country soundtrack, apparently.

now what's in it for the guys? tragically, guys can be bad at line dancing -- guys can be bad at anything really, there's nothing a guy can't be bad at. sometimes one two step is just too difficult for a guy. compound awkward feet with tucked in shirts and you have the silliest bunch of males on the planet struggling to keep up with alan jackson's greatest hits. it's not a pretty sight. add in all the plaid patterns that guys wear at country bars and it just gets worse. there's just too much plaid in the world. the appeal of line dancing for guys is the girls and the beer, and not necessarily in that order.

this brings us to another reason people might like line dancing. in line dancing, you're supposed to look a little silly. so even if you suck or you feel stupid, it's okay! there's no pretense of "i'm the bomb line dancer" because that really lends you no social cachet. line dancing is a cool free zone. how cool can line dancing be? i mean, like, really? so even if you look like a retard, you're surrounded by retards, so it's all good. line dancing is the safe haven for people who don't want to worry about what other people think of their rhythmic stylings. this translates to enormous amounts of fun. or so i hear.

i wouldn't know because we didn't quite make it to line dancing this week. maybe if we go next week i can visually confirm my suspicions and verify my hypotheses of why people like line dancing. it's not about the music, it's about the freedom to be silly.

but how can i go when i'm so against tucking in my shirt? why do they make guys do this?! "country line dancing: tuck in your shirts and leave your style at the door."

"perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. it is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences.

and the important thing that i can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. here is the test: you have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. it doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated.

if you are more tired then you have been poisoned. if you have more energy you have been nourished. the test is almost infallible."
-milton glaser, ten things i've learned-

the star of the show has arrived. march fifth, 9:02pm, shanghai china. the package takes off and makes its way to narita-shi, japan. on the same calender day it arrives halfway around the world in indianapolis, indiana. there it sits for thirty some odd hours. i've never been so interested in anything in indianapolis. this morning, at 6:04am my precious finally arrives in san diego. three hours later (9:19am) it arrives on the doorstep of lilly's apartment. i'm not sure if she's picked it up for safekeeping yet. but the main point to remember is that around this time i'm just getting into work, for at least fourteen hours, if not longer.

when will i finally get to see my treasured twelve inch ibook? i have no idea. i have overtime today and tomorrow. i had hoped to time the delivery just right so that the ibook would come near the end of the week, giving me time to play with it immediately. but due to the whims of the malicious apple gods it arrived today, and not last friday. the pain of not being able to touch it right now is excruciating.

maybe i shouldn't be calling it an "it." that might make him/her not feel at home. but i'm not sure i'm a namer of inanimate objects. i don't name my cars, my instruments, my electronics, my computers. maybe i should, just this once. really, you know, live a little.

i'm a mac man baby. why don't you love me.

up up wth people. people move around more these days, as compared to fifty years ago when the inefficiency and costs of transportation were prohibitive. this has changed the way we are as a society. this little nugget i gleaned from my haphazard skimming of this month's book: "the rise of the creative class." basically what is being noted here, among many other things, is that people move around more and this causes us to create weaker social ties, as opposed to stronger permanent ties that result from staying in one place over a period of many years. with all this moving about, there is a need and a want for people to make friends and acquaintances easily. the book also says that when people move around, some of them are inclined to live "quasi-anonymous lives."

how's this apply to us/me?

well, i find that from my experiences with moving around, and from my friends' experiences, most of us move to new places and then immediately set off on the task of re-creating their comfort zones. i have very limited experience with moving to a new place and then settling down -- in fact, i have none. most of my major moves have been toward friends or back to friends. i've not tackled the awesome task of uprooting my life and re-planting in a random locale. college doesn't count because college is made for meeting people and everybody is more or less transplanted.

one ancillary benefit of being able to move around so much, aside from the accruement of worldy experience, is that you can re-invent yourself when you get to a new place. nobody knows you, nobody has any (mis)conceptions of you, you get to start over. i'm very much a proponent of the "you can only grow when faced with new things and new surroundings, nothing grows in stagnation" line of thought.

sometimes people just want to get away from what they know and who they know. what better time than now? when moving to a new city is only a hop and a skip away? but functionally, unless you are one of those people looking to escape, or are just have a wanderlust-type personality, most people are hesitant to go somewhere completely new. what inhibits them is just the thing that should provide absolute freedom. now that we can stay in touch with our family and friends from any location, we are able to constantly compare our new friends to our old friends. and we tend to overlook the fact that it took months/years to gather our current crop of friends. and if you move to a new city, you'll be desperately lonely for an unbearable amount of time until you can find your stride. that's totally not fun.

i guess what i'm trying to say here is that even though it seems like we have more tools than ever to move around and explore, it seems like most people are trying to find stability in their lives instead of embracing the unknown. but that's human nature i suppose. we want to terraform the environment to suit what we know and can survive in, instead of adapting to what's at hand -- and running the risk of failing. humans shape the world around them, not the other way around. so maybe there's this innate need for us to resist constant change.

then again, i'm not one to speak knowingly on this topic since i'm hesitant to even leave the house without one or two friends by my side. i need to talk to people who get the itch to move every once in awhile, so that i can get a different perspective on this issue.

human-pomorphism. having been born in the year of the horse, i hold within me an innate attachment to horses. this extends to all horses and horse derivatives. normal equines, ponies, unicorns, zebras, pegasus, donkeys (although not so much for this one), llamas, camels, pretty much anything hoofed and vaguely horse-like i feel an affinity towards. so my question is, do other people, born in the year of the snake/rat/cock/bull, feel a similar attachment to their animal signs?

i mean, the horse is a beautiful animal with many obvious attractive attributes -- physically, sociologically, conceptually. but how often do you think people -- regardless of what year they were born -- feel a kinship to sheep? and although each sign encompasses mostly positive traits, what is there to like about being compared to a snake? or is that just western religion talking?

every time i read a profile for the year of the horse, i ask myself "is this me?" and if some of the characteristics fit, then i'm like "dude, i'm totally a horse." but then it makes no sense because how can everyone born in 1978 have the same personality traits as me? wouldn't that mean everyone my age would be similar to each other? george and i were born together and we're totally different. this makes no sense.

the zodiac system seems more logical to me for exactly this reason. grouping people based on months -- and not years -- seems like it would have a better chance of working out. plus the zodiac is attached to the cosmos, and anything has to be within the realm of possibility if based on the cosmos, right? i have one friend whose favorite line is "oh, that's so virgo. we're both virgos, no wonder we're good friends." she says this to me every time i see her. so it really reinforces the idea that i'm more likely to get along with fellow virgos than fellow horses. i'm easily influenced, i know.

but the chinese take this animal stuff seriously. at my grandfather's funeral, we (me, george and my uncle -- twelve years older) couldn't watch him getting entombed because rabbits and horses are mortal enemies. we were maybe twelve at the time and i really couldn't really understand why we weren't allowed to watch. i thought it silly that our animal signs should dictate what we could and couldn't do at a family member's funeral. but that's tradition speaking, and tradition is bigger than any of us. but is it bigger than the cosmos? who knows.

my mom and dad are tiger and dog respectively, which turns out to be a horse's best matches. so maybe there is something to all of this stuff. if that is indeed the case, and the ancient chinese know something i do not, then i should be on the lookout for tigers and dogs. dogs i've seen aplenty, tigers, not so much.

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