True Greatness

For the past couple weeks I have been trying to figure out how to begin blogging again. I have tried writing about politics, music, and life in general. None of the entries that I have drafted recently are anything close to what I want to say. Usually writing about something that I am passionate about comes easily, but I really have felt a lack of excitement in my life recently. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a thing; excitement isn't the only way to feel fulfilled.

I feel like a lot of people spend their life trying to find fulfillment. I think that this is a noble pursuit but can often be lead a person to do things that don't actually reflect their personal goals. Finding fulfillment has turned from trying to follow passions to trying a little bit of everything. It is really difficult to find fulfillment in many regions of interest, though not impossible. 

I recently watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and thought it was a fantastic movie, but felt really dissatisfied with my own life by the end. In the movie Walter Mitty ends up having a huge amounts of adventures despite starting as a mere photo developer for Life magazine. As I watched it I felt like my life has been inadequately filled and even the exciting parts of my life have been mundane in comparison to others around me. 

I feel like there are many things in life that can make us feel down if we aren't careful. The fact that I still have many years of university left and haven't ever actually had a"real" job yet is really overwhelming to me. Sometimes I feel like there is no way that I will ever have a degree or work for a salary. 

In order to overcome these frustrating feelings I have begun to figure out that what I am doing right now is fulfillment. At this moment in my life I am doing exactly what I have been working my entire life to do. All of us have an opportunity to accept the opportunities that are right in front of us and make the most of them. If we do that then we will be just a little bit more prepared for further advancements. We will be able to jump to the next stepping stone on our way through life. The real secret to life is not finding adventures in many different areas of expertise, but finding thousands of adventures in the few areas in which we are experts. Fulfillment comes in magnifying these areas and learning to expand our expertise.

Walter Mitty is an amazing character and his story/movie can really teach us all about seizing the moment at hand, but we must make sure that we are not spreading ourselves too thin. As long as we don't sell ourselves short, we can achieve greatness in our personal achievements and expertise in our fields. Fulfillment can occur in ever step on our way toward that greatness. We just need to look for it. 

Year Round Summer

This post has probably been a long time coming seeing as I haven't posted in over 2 weeks, but hey, I get busy I guess.

I don't have too much time, but I wanted to spend a tiny amount of time to lament summer's passing before I have to go to my Political Science 110 class.

I went to an interesting concert last night.  I chose it over going to a BYU football game.  It was a hard decision, but I don't actually believe that there was a right or wrong in it.  There were pros and cons to both. I just needed to make a choice.  Aloe Blacc and Common throw a very excellent show.  It was the end of summer show for SLC Twilight Concert series.  I don't think I've ever felt more out of place, but I also don't think I've ever enjoyed rap music more.  Being with friends in a variety of situations is what creates a memory that keeps.  (Pictures will be added later)

Basically, this summer has been awesome.  I have worked hard, but played even harder.  There is nothing more excellent than a summer full of friends, concerts, swimming, hiking, etc.  I have done all of these things many times over and wish I had more time.  Someday I think I will move somewhere that I can go summer year round.  In the mean time, I think that the summer mindset that I have worked so hard to develop can continue in a small way.  Though I don't think it would be wise to be as easy going about school as I have been about life in general the past months, I do believe that I can keep a fun loving, free mind open to adventure.

We can find adventures in our every day lives.  We just need to know where to look for it.  Some adventures will be better than others, but they all create the same imprint in our memory.  Our memories can only store memorable things.  So make every single day count.  Find something everyday that you can tell a story about tomorrow.

Epitome of Summer

Summer is a vague subject in my brain.  What makes a summer day so great?  What separates a summer day from a hot, sticky August day? Is it the freedom of doing exactly what you want to do? Is it spontaneity? Is it sacrificing boredom for the feeling of freedom, no matter how brief it may feel? Summer is the freedom to do exactly what you want to do in the moment you want to do it.

For Example:

I will describe the adventure that occurred on today's perfect summer day.  Gathering friends together to celebrate the fact that we all live and enjoy the time we spend living was only the beginning.  Wearing my red, "Beef: it's what's for dinner" hat.  Arriving at an unrippled pond.  (Unrippled ain't a word I guess) Not another soul.  We had the water to ourselves, aside from the geese.  The water, the rope swing, and the dock were all ours.  Everything made for perfection that couldn't be ruined, even an hour later when other people started to show up, having discovered our secret.  

This is a place known for summer fun though nobody understands fully.  Sure, the feeling is great as your bare feet leave the low limbs of the old tree as you skim across the surface, but this isn't the only thing that makes it great.  The great feeling is doing it over and over and over again, laughing the whole time.  Laughing because we've forgotten what we were so worried about hours before.  Laughing because we like this feeling of forgetting.  

Summer is forgetting.

Of course, summer is not just about forgetting everything.  As a student, we forget school.  As an adult we take a moment/hour/day/week to forget about the day-to-day struggles. It is forgetting the worry we feel and remembering the friends we have and the things we crave all through the year.  Running barefoot to catch a baseball or frisbee.  Swimming in a lake or river.  Climbing, hiking, running, and wishing to fly for miles.  Things that can't be replicated when the cold weather reappears.  The friendship we have and develop is the most important thing that we can concentrate on during these months.  Nobody ever had proper fun hiking a mountain by themselves. Sandlot would be an extremely dull movie had there only been one kid on the baseball field.  The people we associate with during the summer months are generally the friends that we stick with in hard situations during the rest of the year.  

There are too many things that help make a hot summer day into the magic that is necessary for an unforgettable adventure.  Too many things to really pin down.  The people we do an activity with are the major decider of what makes for the best summers.  The kind of day that will be imprinted in the ripples of your mind for decades.

The hardest part about a summer is the end.  Unfortunately as I write this I am beginning to realize exactly how numbered our summer days are.  School starts in two weeks, one of the best kids I know is moving down to St. George for school tomorrow, and the good byes have been flying around.  Good byes suck pretty bad, but it is a regular summer festivity.  There has never been a summer without a few farewells along the way.  Pieces of us going in all sorts of weird directions with our friends.  The seemingly perfect days only memories.

Though you could argue that there is no such thing as a perfect day, I feel that we may have abridged memories, to make them appear as such. So hopefully as the summer days get shorter, and the fall countdown begins; as we part ways and focus on new goals and ambitions, the memories of these summer days stay perfect in our minds.

A Beautiful Beginning-People Watching

Well, I guess I should start by explaining myself.  My name is Jordan.  Plain and simple.  It's spelled like it sounds, it's spelled like it's spelled in the Bible, the country name, and the surname of one of the most influential sports figures of all time.  This is me. But I guess I should keep it short.  I'm not really all that interesting, but I do have random thoughts and things that are probably better left unsaid.  I've never been one to keep my mouth shut, so this is the purpose of my newly restarted blog.

The things that are on my mind tonight come from a few things that I have noticed this evening.  I went to a concert tonight with my brother, Bryan, and his friend, Nate.  The band playing was My Morning Jacket, with the opener being Joshua James.  Both bands blew us away.  It was an absolute party of a show.  It attracted an amazing cultural diversity of human beings.  That's how shows in Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park tend to go.  The beauty of being able to listen to world class bands in the middle of the biggest city for miles and miles, and only have to pay 5 bucks for it is too much for any man, woman, or skid to refuse.  Seriously.  Everyone and their dog appears at these shows.  (p.s. "a skid" equals a delinquent teenager. Also called a chav or ned in Great Britain)

In fact the thing that I'd like to talk about these shows isn't the amazing music that is played at the concerts in the park, but the people that show up.  In fact, last week we went to the same venue, same price, to see Band of Horses.  It was also a solid show.  There was a man standing only about 20 feet from us wearing a big rubber Halloween horse's head over his own dome.  It was seriously one of the stranger things that I've seen. I don't know if he thought he would pick up girls... or attract a fetching filly.  I'm not sure.  (The funny thing is, he had way more persons of the female persuasion around him than any of the rest of us.)  Man, whatever works for you.  Personally I'd rather get trampled by a herd of goats than sweat to death in a nasty mask at a Summer outdoor concert.

Other people of interest at the Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket shows included, shifty-eyed druggies trying to hide what they've got in their pockets from security, several nasty couples mackin' in a SRO crowd, and several billion hipsters.  I've honestly never believed there were so many indie kids in this world, let alone the great state of Utah, but all you have to say is "Band of Horses, 5 dollars" and they crawl out of the wood work. For those of you who may not understand the term "hipster", it is basically someone who believes that every trend started with them.  "Oh, those big framed glasses? I was wearing those before it was cool."
"Oh, skinny jeans? I wore those before anyone else."
"I was listening to Band of Horses way before they were famous."
What do I say to hipsters? Bull!  Those big framed glasses were definitely started by the likes of Albert Einstein, Cary Grant, Colin Firth, Randy Jackson, and definitely Buddy Holly.  If you claim to be cooler than Buddy Holly or Cary Grant you're definitely a hater in my book.  And skinny jeans are nasty gross anyway, why would anybody else want to try to wriggle their way into those things just so they can then peal them off the shrunken flesh of their legs at the end of the day? Trust me, I've tried.  And music is not something you can have the market on.  So what? You introduced a band to all your friends, it's not like your writing their music or managing their tours.  Now that would be impressive.  If I ever met a hipster and he told me, "hey, I'm the song writer for Vampire Weekend."  I would totally give him props.  Heck, I would take the fall-back beanie off my head and put it on his (except he'd probably already be wearing one, so I'd probably just get to keep my hipster hat).  I just don't understand how I'm supposed to respect you just because you "knew" Passion Pit before they started playing the song, Sleepyhead, on the radio.  (Oh dear, I've now turned this into a hipster rant.  I get on those every now and then. Pay no heed.)

There was one more man I'd like to mention. He was standing outside the gates of the show.  He was holding up tickets.  Yes, he was trying to scalp 5 dollar tickets to people that knew that they were only 5 dollar tickets.  I think I said it too loudly when I said to Bryan, "Man, is that guy serious? He has nothing better to do than try to sell discount tickets to an already discounted show?"  Scalpers are some of the most detesting forms of human life on the planet and to stoop so low as to try to make a few extra bucks out of some hipster teenagers is pretty dumb. (though I won't say that I haven't been the beneficiary of one such man with tickets minutes before a show begins.  In desperation I get a sweet deal, and he gets a handful of not-enough-cash-for-those-tickets-you-just-sold-me. (Yeah, it's one really long hyphenated word. deal with it.)(and yes, it is a parenthetical statement within parenthesis. You can deal with that too.))  A scalper is the best friend of a procrastinator, but when you can procrastinate until you walk in the gates of the show to buy your ticket for the same price that everyone got theirs online, the need for a scalping middle-man is obsolete.  Mr. Scalper of 5 dollar tickets, your job is done here. and everywhere. You never have to do that again.  Why?  Because it's totally pointless anyway.  What's your goal? To get a Baconator at the end of the night from Wendy's?  Too bad man, the Baconator meal is definitely 6 dollars and eighty cents, and there's no way in this life, or the next that you will ever sell even one of those five dollar tickets, stained blue from the lining of your denim pockets.  If you ever do sell one, you'll still be a buck eighty short.  Why not just step inside and enjoy the music and the aroma of cheap concert magic that is the Salt Lake Arts Council Twilight Concert Series?

This post is rather stream of consciousness and I'm afraid that is going to be a common thing in these posts.  I will say, the Twilight Concert Series is well worth it if you have nothing better to do on your Summer Thursday nights.  I generally don't have much important to say, but plenty to say about things unimportant.  I hope you will forgive me.  This may end up rather ridiculous if I let it.  Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.