Author Archive

Eurisko

Eurisko means I discover in Greek. It feels fitting to start a post with that idea.

I wish life could be more focused on the journey, the discovery, instead of the things that seem to be most important to modern civilization.

Gandhi said be the change you want to see.

I have found that it is difficult to be the change when it seems like your voice barely registers. My signal is lost in the ‘verse.

I would like to note here that as soon as I typed Gandhi’s name my shuffle went to Chaiyya Chaiyya from the Dil Se soundtrack.

Auspicious, no?

I’m currently sitting on my steps, giant cup of espresso in hand, staring into a gloriously blue winter sky. I dislike winter principally because it’s normally so gray. All of the color leached from the landscape, cold and barren.

It’s a season that I’ve never become accustomed to. I became self-aware in Central America, the most formative moments of my boyhood spent in the oceans and jungles of Panama. As such, I dislike intensely the cold of much of North America.

There are many things that we are forced to accept in this life. Chance and circumstance serve to circumscribe our existence.

I’ve never become accustomed to limitations either. I will not, can not, rest on past laurels; may I never be forced to lower my grasp from the stars. Nothing worthwhile comes easily or without price. That’s the nature of life, of our lives, we all must pay for the things we want, in some way or other.

Price. When does it become too much?

When does the cost of discovery become too much to be borne?

Mortals, we are.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever run out of things to say.

I sincerely hope not, because that would mean that I’ve become deficient in some manner or other.

I’m feeling reflective tonight, my great-uncle died in the morning of what is now yesterday. I think that a death makes everyone stop and take stock of what’s truly important.

I’m not certain that it’s sunk in yet. I feel, well that’s just it; I don’t know what to feel.

Should I say that I feel decidedly mortal? That I’m sad? That I cannot for the life within me think of something to say to my grandmother?

I think that sometimes the nature of the lives we lead is infinitely unfair.

I think I’ll just leave it at that.

Def(ine)[d]

Sometimes the moments that challenge us the most come to define us.

A physical and mental struggle, you’re going to have hiccups, you’re going to hit rough patches.

When you cross that finish line, no matter how slow or fast, it will change your life forever.

Yep, I’m talking about running marathons. A marathon. A marathoner.

Me.

Realities

“She was cheating on me, ripped a hole in me through which you could see tiny angels weeping.”

– Weeds

I like that quote, last year on this day I had an eerie feeling, a not-quite suspicion that something like that was looming. I was right.

Sometimes being right isn’t much fun, but my life has improved immeasurably since that day.

In other news my twenty-twelve marathon-training shoe decision has been made:

20120101-220824.jpg

My Nike tweet-pledge:

(@rymclovin)
1/1/12 7:29 PM
I will: Run more. Run harder. Run longer. Run stronger. Run as if my life depends on it. Because it does. #MAKEITCOUNT http://nike.com/makeitcount

2011 in review (stats)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Calendrical

Why exactly do we celebrate the first day of a new year? I get the idea of a clean slate, new beginning, fresh start…etc. It’s just another year. Not much really changes, but it’s a national holiday and election day isn’t. Personally I think that election day should be a national holiday and that every eligible voter should be excused from work for at least the time it takes to go participate in democracy.

That’s just me though.

As for the flood of resolutions; I don’t make new year’s resolutions. If I find something that I feel I need to change I don’t save it up for the first. I just make the changes I need, then and there.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea that people can make positive changes in their lives, it’s just that something about the whole resolution system that smacks of commercialism and manipulation to me.

Maybe I’m a bit more cynical than I need to be. There’s something I can work on.

Happy 2012.

(In)Disposed

Deleting numbers from my phone.

Easier said than done, you’re not just deleting a sequence of seven numbers, but a person, memories; a piece of the past that made the present possible. You’re admitting that the person is unsalvageable, or at least that the possibility of any kind of healthy relationship is.

It’s actually an incredibly sad experience. Or at least it should be.

Everything is disposable these days. Including, maybe especially, people.

Keyword: Intensity

I am now writing a video game for my application to bioware. Apparently I actually don’t have enough on my plate.

But who could pass up a chance to work with the writers and artists that created mass effect and dragon age. I mean seriously: Casey Hudson and Drew Karpyshyn!

I also learned something new today, apparently my general intensity has a basis in my physiology, perhaps basis is too strong, but there’s a link:

I have merged heart and head lines, a simian crease. Combined with whorled fingerprints. Apparently these traits allow me to put my whole heart and mind into everything I do.

How did I get so lucky?

The rest of this post has been sitting in my upload cue, forgotten and forlorn, ignored and alone. The emotions and thoughts behind the words are long since flown but I’ll share it with you anyway.

I haven’t had much to say lately. A bit off my normal plot for sure.

Consistently, constantly busy is the mantra.

But I’ve been noticing an air of sick desperation on the locals. It’s bad everywhere right now, this is something new and while I’ve got suspicions, I’m not quite certain what to make of it.

Child of Man

“In times of peace, sons bury their fathers. In times of war, fathers bury their sons.”

War never changes. The names, faces and places differ. The weapons and tactics evolve. But the reasons are ever the same.

Throughout human history, we have fought each other over seemingly important things.

I wonder if the violence is encoded in our very DNA, is it our only true heritage? Is it the way human beings have been forged by this planet, that we must ever fall upon force as the solution to so many of our problems?

There are many things worth fighting for, there are so many causes that are just. The ideals behind so many actions are pure. I just wish that peaceful solutions could be found for every situation. Not a unique thought I know but it’s something I often wonder about.

The problem with that is the simple fact that there are violent people on this planet, and sometimes those people have power, when they do they have the power to use other human brings as their weapons.

It’s a vicious cycle. Violence begets violence begets violence and so on and so forth. The view of the cycle I see so very clearly stretches backward and forward from the point at which i stand into infinity in either direction.

I know this because I am a product of this cycle. Exactly like everyone else who has ever been born human.

I am a child of this earth, and I have the power to heal or kill just like every other human who has ever left footprints on this rock.

As ever, the question is one of choice. What will I choose? What will you choose? What happens when people are forced into a choice?

The variables are staggering, the equation far too complex for my organic computer to calculate. There are no algorithms to predict the choices of individuals with perfect confidence.

The things that run through my mind sometimes freak me out. So much pressure I put on myself, would I ever be content with a normal life?

*This post has been sitting in my upload cue for well over a month, I’m not certain why I didn’t want to post it. It feels a little depressing and morbid but that’s never really stopped me before.

Runner’s guilt

I have been incredibly slack with regard to my running schedule…for months now.

This is unacceptable. I hate it when I do this to myself because it will take an equal amount of months to get back into shape.

I can rationalize all I want to about the many, many demands on my time. This is pure sophistry. Equivocation in its most elemental form.

I must make the time to run, yes it’s cold out, yes I’m usually dead tired every night, yes my weekends always feel too short.

I can sleep when I’m dead.

Back at it, with a vengeance.