Friday, December 25, 2009

Stella

Today is Christmas, and I have spent it in Colorado with family. My parents and Grandmother came together to give me a Stiletto 15 0.z. framing hammer. Interestingly enough I have been drooling over this particular tool for the past couple of months and trying to create a way to buy one. Now you may think that its just a hammer, but this is the cou de gras of hammers. This thing weighs half that of other hammers, but hits just as hard, God bless American ingenuity. I have affectionately name it Stella. Yes I do have my shirt off in this photo..... enjoy it.
From me


Every Christmas, not unlike other families, we sit down and eat dinner as family and friends at one table. And inevitably the question comes up "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Now, it is usually my father who is the one who incites this discussion, which we all "love" answering as you can imagine. But it was my Nana who asked this time so we had to come up with some answer out of a since of respect and submission to the sages in our life. Not that my father isn't a fountain of wisdom and knowledge, he's just not in the right generation if you know what I mean. The question bounced from person to person and eventually made it to me. I know that there are things that I want to do with my life, like becoming an astronaut while still maintaining my position as head of the white house and in my spare time climbing the random 8000 meter peaks in asia that I hadn't managed to bag before I had become either of those respectable titles. You know, the stuff everybody wants to do, carry a job that you truly enjoy, travel, teach and be taught, fall in love, make friends in many places. Yes I have those ambitions but I find that I am not driven in life by those desires to an extent. Of course I do want to do that stuff and have those experiences. But I found that I, weather subconsciously or volitionally, I live by a set dogmas that drive what I do differently than just a desire to have. (I don't think that I am an exception or live differently than everyone else, I just have come to recognize this about myself. In fact I think that most everybody is like this)
For instance, I always want to be in a position to help people. I know that you can make the argument that everywhere you are you can help people, and I see this. But I want to make sure that I do this or am always in that position. I think what I am saying is that I want to be altruistic in what I do. I guess that you can call altruism, humility. But to me it feels different. Humility seems to me like you have the mindset that people are just as good as you if not better, and yes I do want that. But altruism to me is saying that people deserve just as good as you if not better, in stuff, they way they are treated, everything kind of. I like this, its like when you can tell someone is trying to give you their best in all that they do, cause they really care for you, not out of a sense of duty, but cause they think you deserve the best. I always want to be creating something. Not always for just some practical reason, but sometimes for the simple sake of beauty. Creating is worship and worship is healing. I always want to be challenged by my fellow man. I love Derrick Browns quote in Church of the broken axe handle "Pal you are church, a house of healing that is the closest thing to the image of salvation since people thought to hold hands when jumping to their deaths from the failure of buildings." I would love if that is what I saw in people more, I guess its a process to get to that point and God has me where I'm at now for a reason. I'm ok with that, He knows better than me anyways.
I know that this all seems terribly idealistic but I'm ok with that for now. The five years question just got me thinking today and I figured that if I wrote something down it would make more sense to me. But sometimes I find that I suffer from things making sense in my head but not even being a little bit cohesive when I decide to talk about it. I guess its ok, it'd probably be confusing to anyone besides myself anyways if I could articulate it correctly. Anyways I hope that you have a Merry Christmas with whoever you decide to spend it with.

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