Don’t Ease Me In by The Grateful Dead

A week ago I was in the library, 5 minutes before my Philosophy class started. I was printing out the homework due that day (the printer in my room doesn’t work at the moment). I noticed another dude from my class doing the same thing. We both sent out assignments to the communal printer at about the same time, but he got to it first. The way the communal printer works, is it displays the queued documents, the user selects which they want to print, then they pay for them and the document prints. Turns out both he and I printed from Google Docs, so they were indistinguishable on the screen (just the Google Docs url). So he printed out his, and went on to class, and afterwards I did the same. I noticed on my way to class that I had his paper, so I suspected he had mine. I didn’t say anything to him, and he didn’t say anything to me. In fact, we never acknowledged that the mix-up ever occured. Not before, during, or after class. As we left the room once class had ended, he handed in my assignment (I checked to make sure he had in fact handed in my assignment, and he had), and I handed in his.

Maybe he never looked at his paper, and never noticed that the name on there wasn’t his, or the answer underneath that was shorter and differently formatted than his. But I doubt that. I’m pretty sure he noticed, and just went with it. I think that’s pretty cool.

Went to NY with Ali this weekend to see some friends, sights, etc. I enjoyed the city a lot more than I did on previous visits, and I’m pretty sure its because we did the city at night. Daytime in NY gives me a headache, and on top of that I don’t like the rush. Nighttime is different. We did a lot, and I could tell a lot of different stories, but I’ll just tell the one anecdote that stands out from this weekend.

At some point on Saturday, someone commented on/started singing/started humming Mahna Mahna. Slowly, it crept into everyone’s mind, and refused to be stopped. Later into the night, we started bursting into song, because we just couldn’t keep it inside. While hanging around the Bamn! Automat (which I very much enjoyed, even if I didn’t eat there) Max decided to try and get people on the street to join in with us in song. He went up to the corner, and started singing/humming, and one by one we joined him, as if we were just passersby, caught up in the magic of the song. We got a couple other folks to join in with us, but for the most part people just walked past us, bemused.

This wasn’t nearly satisfying, so we started to look for another target. Across the street were two musicians, playing trombone and accordian, playing traditional klezmer songs. We walked up to them, and waited for them to finish the song they had been playing before tossing the Mahna Mahna ball into their court. Quickly, they picked up on what we were doing and started to jam along, creating an entirely new beast of a song. Max was clever enough to think of recording it, and hopefully I’ll be able to get a copy. Once that was finished, they started back up with their own repertoire, with us clapping and dancing along. Soon, a crowd had gathered to hear these guys play. Some in the crowd were musicians with instruments in hand, and before long they had joined in as well. Now we had a five piece band consisting of a soprano saxophone, fiddle, guitar, trombone and accordian, with a mass dancing and clapping people around it all. On a street corner in New York City. At 4 in the morning.

Casey Jones by Phil Lesh and Friends

I think I finally realized why I don’t do drugs. Its taken me a while, and over time I had come up with a few explainations which tried to put my thoughts into words. I started off quite simply by seeing someone who was drunk, stoned, or in any sort of altered state, and deciding that I didn’t want to be like that. But I didn’t have a why.

For a while I said it was because I didn’t want to alter my perspective, and that’s closer to the why. Earlier tonight, someone asked if it was just about clear-headedness, and it is, but that still isn’t the answer.

When walking home tonight I realized what it all boiled down to: independence. Now, that word has a lot of interesting political connotations to it, that I don’t want anything to do with. Let me make it very clear: the definition of independence I’m using is ‘Free from the influence, guidance, or control of another or others; self-reliant.’

Mind altering substances reduce your freedom. If you don’t find yourself having as much fun, or being as creative, or as relaxed as you are in an altered state, then you’ve certainly lost some of your freedom. If you want to reach that level again, you’ll need to go back to whatever helped you get there in the first place, and you become dependent. It becomes a crutch, which you would prefer not to be without.

I find it interesting that people claim drugs help them free their mind, when in reality the opposite is true. This concept also gives a new meaning to the phrase ‘drug free.’

The theme of independence permeiates throughout all parts of my life. I don’t want to be tied down to anything that won’t come with me. The bus is an example of that.

I really do wish more people had this view, but I won’t hold my breath.

Revelation Two Step by Donna the Buffalo

Walking back from breakfast today (which was really just minutes ago) I had the sun at my back. It was warm out with a nice breeze, clear blue sky, and all in all a perfect day to enjoy nature. When I looked down, I saw my shadow extending about six feet in front of me. And in the middle of this incredible gift of nature, I realized something: I really like my shadow.

Its the most immediate and tangible example of my impact on the world. Even people who are thought to have nothing, and thought to have accomplished nothing in their lives, always have their shadows. Its a reminder that we do matters, and that we do have an impact on the world. That gives me a sense of comfort, which I had never seen in my shadow before.

Its about damn time. Finally, my MythTV box is working. I credit KnoppMyth. I’ve tried many other distros (some of which didn’t even bundle MythTV) and none worked with my machine. Knoppix was able to do it, and the KnoppMyth distro made it so I didn’t even need to set it up.