It’s the way I see everything I need, it’s the way to be. Higher and higher and higher.
On the eve of the weekend that most of this country will be celebrating the nations independence, I find myself gearing up to head back west (although not in a covered wagon). I’ll have been gone from May 20th to July 7th, not as long as my excursion last summer, but long enough. I’ve visited many of my good friends and family as well as many of the places on the mainland that I love. I had a fantastic time every step of the way (and I thank you all for that), but I’m ready to head back and figure out what it all has meant to me.
I’m not sure if it’s the distance at which all my friends now reside from me, or that I’m getting older and softer (don’t people usually get harder as they get older and more steadfast in their ways? Wouldn’t be the first time that I progress against the grain), or a combination of several factors, but there really isn’t anything better than being surrounded by those you love (well maybe the only thing better than that is if you are eating at the same time). Wow that was a long sentence. You stop writing for a few weeks and you forget your manners. Shit. Not only did I manage to see more of you this time around but everything was an upgrade. More friends, more destinations, longer road trips, longer music festivals, less rigid planning, more food, more fun, more smiles, more laughter, more comfort, more happiness, more going with the flow, and more independence.
The year is only (already?!) half over, I’m going to canoe 18 miles this weekend, go camping, barbecue, and then fly home where one of my best friends will be moving into my home with me for a year or so. Since flights are getting cheaper, I’ll be sure to have even more visitors stopping by for good times in Hawaii, and I’ll be making more frequent trips to places that warrant further marination and exploration, LA being at the top of the list (a story for another day). Sure I should be saving, my money and my miles. Sure I should be focusing, on my work and furthering my career. Sure I shouldn’t need to adventure so much, since I live in Hawaii and everyday is a vacation. But I just can’t help myself. It’s the way I see everything I need, it’s the way to be. Higher and higher and higher.
Tonight I was chatting with Amanda on IM about what we’d both been up to lately. It’s funny how busy we are that even though I do much work for her, we lose track of the other things happening in each others lives. It’s a far cry from the days we spent crammed into the same office, but the price we pay for having our own pursuits. She has three wonderful pursuits which she can only take partial credit for, those come in the form of her amazing husband and amazing 2.0 children. She also has some wonderful pursuits for which she can take even more credit for, like DailyWorth and Soapbxx.
We were discussing these pursuits of hers on IM, and she asked me what I had been up to, since clearly she knew I hadn’t been working. I answered that I had been at the beach, the cousin of a friend who was visiting had called me up and so I went to chill, and I intended to spend the remainder of the night on two projects that I am currently working on. To which she replied:
Amanda: sounds like a typical simon day
Amanda: friend, beach, code
Amanda: repeat
We then finished our conversation and she went to get some much-needed sleep. So I was left reflecting on her words while listening to the song that I have chosen to accompany this post (it happened to be playing on my iTunes which is often just set to shuffle). At the right time of day, with the right soundtrack, the simplest of statements can resonate so loudly with me. With some loose interpretation, the essence of my very being can be refined down into that simple but eloquent observation. Friend, beach, code. Repeat. These are the three most important things in my life, in the order of importance.
On most days, my friends are my friends. Everyday, my family are my friends. Not because I don’t have the choice as to who my family is, but because I choose to spend time with them when I don’t have to. I hang out with my family on a Tuesday afternoon, or on a Sunday night. I go to the beach with them, or out on the boat, or to a new restaurant, or to one of our favorites. No matter how often we do things, the day/night never goes by without someone saying we don’t see each other enough. Of course my friends are my friends not purely by circumstance or genetics, but by choice. My friends are a finite pool of haves and have-nots, and some how in some way we manage to mutually benefit from talking/singing/listening/loving/hating/breathing/watching/eating/being with each other. If you put all my friends in a room together and asked anyone in the world to tell me what they had in common, no one would ever guess it was me. Whatever that is, there is no substitute, and so it stands to reason that there is no substitute for my friends. I love my friends.
The beach is the best place on earth. Whether it’s the over-crowded Jersey shore on 4th of July weekend, or an uninhabitable island in Fiji, the beach is an iconic place of respite and/or joy. The sun, the water, the sand/rocks, the waves, the birds, the winds, the heat, the smell. The feeling of the beach is unparalleled. I’ve chosen to spend my days living in a home several blocks from the beach, in a beach town, on an island chain that is furthest one can get from any other land mass on this planet. Next to the company we keep, the environment in which we choose to spend our time impacts our enjoyment of our lives the most. This is why I’ve chosen to spend my time in a place where most people dream of spending a week-long vacation at most. I love the beach.
I live by the code and I will die by the code. On the surface, the code is the various programming and database languages that I use to build applications for non-profits all over the U.S. On the surface, the code Amanda was referring to is the code that I spend all of my working hours and a good portion of my non-working hours pouring over, soaking up, and even thinking in. I see 1’s and 0’s. But dig a little deeper and it’s evident that everything I do, and most things I feel, are part of a larger non-web-specific code. It is a continuously evolving code, a code not bound by any traditional boundaries, or a moral/ethical compass pulled from any ancient scripture or influenced greatly by any popular culture or western society. It is a code that has resulted over nearly 26 years of eating, traveling, living, loving, losing, witnessing, feeling and bettering. It is a code that is intended to be hackable by anyone who cares to, and is guided gently by a ghost in the machine. I love the code.
Amanda ended our conversation with:
Amanda: programmers aren’t supposed to write well
No need to be stumped Amanda, I am not a programmer. I just happen to love the code. Cause the code got me to 25 years of age. The code got me to day-after-day of loving where I am, the beach. The beach got me to being okay being alone, and more importantly got me to knowing how much I love my friends. My friends, the beach, the code. I should be so lucky that this record stays skipping the rest of my life.
I write to you on the eve of Friday March 27th in the year 2009, this 100th post. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 100 posts, and that there are hundreds more I thought of but never bothered to capture here. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know I’m not big on milestones or celebrations of numbers that are trivial (for the most part). Or really planned joyous celebrations of any type (see Birthdays, Weddings, Holidays, etc.). But I’ll indulge in reflecting on milestones and goals for the sake of the 100 posts that came before this, and the 100 that I assure you will follow.
Maybe it’s me fighting my nature, the to-do list planner? Maybe it’s me fighting social norms, my counter-culture inner-rebel? (Never been in an Abercrombie store (actually, there was once, but it wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t buy anything), don’t even get me started on clothing catalogs where the models aren’t wearing clothes). Maybe it’s because I feel the energy we spend celebrating arbitrary things at planned times could be better spent celebrating meaningful things at random times? Maybe I just like harder math that accompanies unplanned celebrations?
Last summer I was sitting in my aunt and uncles house in London, gathered with my family from all over, to celebrate the wedding of my cousin. My uncle Neil asked me now that I had moved to Hawaii and had a job I was happy with, what my goals were. I told him I had none. He laughed nervously and thought I was being my normal sarcastic ass of a self (who could blame him really?), but upon inquiring further he began to see how serious I was. I had/have no goals in the way that he (and most likely you) think of goals.
Over the course of an hour, I told him I was planning on buying a house, but it was not a goal, just a way to save money in the long run. Up until my move to Hawaii I had set large umbrella goals from time to time as something to look forward to and to work towards, but I decided that when I moved here, I would give that up. Counter to what my uncle believed/believes, and to what our society at this point-in-time leads us to believe, I believe that such long term goals can be a very bad and ultimately harmful habit. When I reflected upon the goals that I had held previously, and the goals that my closest friends held dear (some could even say their dreams), I noticed that in many instances they were no longer helpful for me/my friends.
You see sometimes, we spend so long chasing our dreams or our goals that we forget why we are doing so. We are so focused on not losing site of our dream or goal that we forget why we had set our sites as such in the first place. I once wrote a fortune (to be placed in a whale) that said “If we spend too long chasing our dreams, by the time we catch them they’ll be tired.” I still stand by that fortune. So often I find the people in my life so caught up in living for the end-goal, living for the finish line, that they won’t have lived at all until they get there (and by then they may be too numb to live at all). I see it in the choices they make for ‘better health’ so that they can ‘live longer’ as if the quantity of years is an adequate replacement for the quality of the years. I see it in the choices they make to suffer through some inadequate existence for X amount of years, to get to the position that they ultimately believe they want to be in, only to get there and realize it’s just more of the same suffering for more money and none of which was worth the years they’ll regret not being able to relive or get back.
I realize goals and dreams have their place, but those are obvious as believing we should have them is the norm. At certain times in our lives, we use dreams and goals to motivate one another (or ourselves) to work towards something we want. I also realize that not everyone is in a place at their life where they feel they have everything they want (especially not at twenty-five). I also want to re-itterate that I am a planner, and being a planner, I have planned for the long-term (financially, mentally, physically). I just haven’t done so to the point that it has impeded on the present at all, and they aren’t dreams/goals or in the name of supporting a dream/goal (I never dreamed of having an IRA when I was growing up, and my IRA isn’t the financial scaffolding of my future dream-life). So I told my uncle that for now, my goal is to not have any goals. I used goals/dreams to get me to different points in my life, but I reject the idea that goals are a necessity to keep us motivated from day to day and week to week. I’m open to the possibilities of goals or dreams being a good thing in my life, but for now, my goal is to not have any goals.
For those of you colored unconvinced, I’ve crunched the numbers and the logic is sound. Plus remember, you are reading this, so I must be doing something right.
My father recently gave me an article from the Economist that contained some interesting Facebook facts. Although I fear that Facebook has been slowly and steadily heading in the wrong direction (in terms of what I want/need/would like from it), I remain an avid user and so the article interested me.
The article, Primates on Facebook, focuses on social network grooming and the typical gender-based differences in which males and females approach their social networks. It draws parallels between behaviors both traditionally in the physical space, as well as in the virtual space. The gist of the article (which I’ll let you read) is that women tend to nurture slightly larger social networks (and thus more relationships) then men. This is because women like to talk a lot which is further supported by the endless amounts of magazines that are available at any grocery store checkout line. I’ve never been to a grocery store (that’s a woman’s role after all), but from what I hear it’s a safari of gossip rags.
So why am I recycling this article which is already posted online for everyone to read, and to which I have already provided a link. Because I’m concerned. It appears that based on the Economists math (which I assume since they are called the Economist, would be pretty good… Upon further reflection, I bet that’s what everyone who signed over their hard earned dollars thought when they hired ’stock brokers’ and ‘investment bankers’ to manage their money…I digress) So apparently based on my Facebook behaviors, I’ve got a vagina.
That’s right. I’m a woman on Facebook. Sure my profile says I’m a 25 year old Male residing in Kailua, HI that attended Ithaca College, but since I regularly write comments on 26 of my friends walls, and send messages to more than 6, I’m on par with the average female. Here’s an idea, why don’t the economists focus on the economy and us Facebook women focus on Social Networking. You get better at the numbers you are so clearly terrible at, and I’ll keep doing what I’m good at, running my mouth and looking at pictures of Lindsay Lohan.
Erin arrived today. She’s the first visitor I’ve had since my 2 month excursion to New York, London and Edinburgh over the summer. I only found out last week that she’d be fleeing the hustle and bustle of New York City to hang out here for a little bit.
I’ve almost been here a year (next month will be a full 12 months). I still find myself stopping at random times of the day to say “I live in Hawaii” to myself. I don’t think I ever won’t. It’s not that it doesn’t feel like home, it’s just that home feels so good. Home evokes a good feeling for most, because of the traditional associations of comfort, safety/protection, and familiarity. But for me, home has changed so often, and sometimes so drastically, that home has always had a tinge of unfamiliarity that accompanied it.
Hawaii is no exception. I learn something new everyday, I find a new beach, a new place to eat, a new type of plant, or species of reptile, or historical fact. This happens in the greatest concentration when I have visitors. Each visitor wants to do different things, see different places, has a different motivation/attitude to their visit, and Hawaii and I accommodate them personally. One day in Waikiki, 3 days bumming around Maui, 7 days (extended to 10 because your airline went belly-up overnight) on Oahu, they all bring something different to the table.
But usually when I go to visit someone else at their home, they know it all. They know the history of every store front in their town (the kids clothing store, that used to be a CD store, that used to be a candy store, that used to be a real estate office), find most of the faces walking around familiar, and ‘doing something new’ isn’t even an option. Here that’s not the case. Here I get to fall in love with the place I live every time someone comes to visit (and really, every day). I get to see things for the first time (or the tenth time) through the eyes of someone who has never experienced it before.
In short, I love when my friends visit. It’s not that I really need the reminders, but when I have visitors I am reminded of why I love my friends. More importantly I am reminded of why I love Hawaii.
Craigslist is always a comedy goldmine. If you don’t regularly check out your local Craigslist personals section, I guarantee you you’ll have some serious laughs in under 5 minutes. If for some reason your local area does not deliver, then check out the Hawaii personals. Since I’m a maths guy, one recent post that really created a cackle was this:
You Can Never Have Too Many Friends
Take note of both her age (in the title of the post), and how long she has been out of ‘the dating scene’. Unless she considers breast feeding with her mother part of the ‘dating scene’, then clearly she didn’t proofread her post. If she did proofread her post, and she counts that action, then she’s posting in the wrong section of the personals anyway (that’s what w4w is for hun).
Another place that never fails to deliver some joy is the infamous Facebook ads. Unlike a Craigslist personal ad, these cost money, so you’d think some proofreading would go into it, especially when the ad only has twenty-five words in it.
The IRS can due what ever they want!
And finally, this ad, for this shirt was right up my no pants alley:
Above is a prioritized list of where I spend my time. Most of my time is spent in the hut. If not at the hut, I can often be found at the beach. The third most frequented place I am found is the post office. What is wrong with me? So much, but not because I love the post office.
Coming from Manhattan, where I used to spend considerable amounts of time at the post office as well, you’d think I’d share the disdain that my fellow New Yorkers do for the post office. Most of you are familiar with the out-the-door lines, severely underpaid/under-motivated/under-basic-intelligence men and women behind the counter, the bulletproof shutters that lock from both sides that you have to slide your package through (but only once they have released the lock on the inside), the Spanish you have to speak to be able to understand what delivery confirmation/signature receipt you are being offered, and the fact that you can’t possibly fit anything “fragile, liquid, powder or potentially hazardous” inside your post card but are asked anyways. “Oh actually yes, I am trying to mail a bomb in this shoddily marked box of mine, a fragile bomb in fact, that when kicked around like a football by your co-workers will combine both powder AND liquid to decimate a city block.”
Alas, I don’t. I find every and any excuse I can to go to the post office. I mail things to people that they aren’t expecting, things that they probably don’t even want, but I just want an excuse to get rid of them AND to go to the post office. Something about the post office in Hawaii specifically, is so therapeutic. I know there is going to be a line (it’s Waikiki after all, and I can’t tell you how many times some European person has tried to ship a run-of-the-mill pineapple in a box they bought which has to be turned down because it hasn’t been checked by the agriculture department). I know the service is going to be slow (it’s Hawaii, no one is in a rush, nor should they be). I know just when I’m the next customer in line to be serviced, half of the staff will take their lunch break. But I don’t mind.
It’s kind of like walking into the shit-storm, but being covered in toilet paper. I’m the only one (especially in Waikiki, where everyone is a tourist) that doesn’t mind all of those things. Everyone else hates the post office before they even get inside, and so when the post office in Hawaii is even slower then their post office at home, has more regulations about what can be sent in/out of the state, has higher rates and slower delivery times because things have to go by boat, they really lose it. I really love it.
My love for the post office is two-fold. The entertainment factor is a big part, but what provides me with even greater satisfaction is that if I’m there, it means I’m getting rid of something. Something that doesn’t fit in an envelope (usually) is leaving my possession to be sent somewhere else. And in my never-ending quest to get rid of everything but the essentials in my life (that includes you), shipping something off can only be good news. It’s not an event, or a project, or an art installation, or like that guy who wrote All My Life For Sale (he sold everything he owned on eBay, and then spent the money traveling around to see/photograph his possessions in their new homes, and ended up falling in love with the woman who bought his kitchen table and her three daughters, and then he married her). It’s just a conscious decision to reduce the clutter.
The more stuff you have, the more stuff you can do things with. This is great if those things are what you want to be doing, if they are not, then these things (which seem great) are obstacles. So I get rid of the obstacles. Here’s where you say “well what if you need/want one or some of things one day?” Go buy it. I’ve gotten rid of hundreds of things, and haven’t bought any of them back yet. The money/time/energy you save from selling your obstacles and as a result not spending money/time/energy on those obstacles will more then cover the costs of buying any of those items back if ever the time comes when you decide they weren’t obstacles but things you actually wanted (you just didn’t think so at the time).
“Yes but what about those things that can’t be bought back or replaced.” Oh touche smart reader, but I challenge your belief whether they can’t be bought back or replaced, and whether or not you need them in the first place. Are you assigning too much value to a thing? Does that note from your high school crush that you saved really serve as a reminder of your love/pain/childhood. If you lose/burn/auction off that note, will you really forget what it felt like to receive/read/write/feel it? Would a scanned copy suffice to remind you of the feelings/memories? Would one instead of the hundred you kept adequately serve the same purpose? Must you insist on dwelling on the past so much? Don’t get me wrong, a handful of items that are kept for sentiment can be great, I just don’t want to have so much that the items that evoke the most nostalgia are lost in a sea of items that evoke little to none.
I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a good designer, but in that defeat I have decided to set my bar a little higher and aim to be a good liver. A good designer knows that you need space in order to give context, meaning, and value to what it is you are trying to display or the message you are trying to convey. Just because you have room, doesn’t mean you should fill it. In an ever-crowded, cluttered, and over saturated world, a good liver knows that the less stuff you have to occupy your space, the more space you have to breath.
