There's no way to say this other than to say that my blog is moving to a new home: fullofrunning.com.
It's running on wordpress now, mainly because I like wordpress better than blogspot, so you won't be able to follow my blog's feed through blogspot. I'f that ends up actually being upsetting to anyone, I have posted an rss feed on my new site :)
thanks for reading this blog everyone. i don't write it because i want people to read it, but it means a lot that you do. see you at the new digs.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
like that
at the center, way down deep, there's a place you go to pull silence over your head for awhile and get away. who wouldn't, given the way we can be, and the way the world can be, and anyways i'm not always sure there's a choice, because everyone wakes up different than they were when they went to sleep. you're always taller in the morning, i learned, but gravity doesn't push on the heart like it does the spine, it pulls, and you wake up some days in disarray, joyful or not.
there's something in the way the world passes underneath you at moments that reminds me of being younger on top of very tall places. when you're up there, you're alone. the only thing i know for sure about being in tall places with views is that i'm always alone there. i don't mean actually alone, because tall places are magnets for people which is weird when you think about it, but there everyone is, filing up and down staircases or mountains or elevators to be up higher than their legs normally let them be. i mean the kind of alone where the dimensional weight of open space forever in front of you pulls you away from everyone and everything around you into lonely silence. real silence. the kind of silence that's so loud you can't help but keep listening to it, like the kind you find after walking into woods under snow.
there are moments like that, when you're up above everything and someone's heart is getting it's crutches for something stupid you said, that are unbearably quiet.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
new year/new ideas/etc
I don't usually do this. actually, I've never done this, but a post from my uncle got me thinking that it might be a good idea to spend some time thinking about some ways to improve in 2011. not that I haven't thought of ways in the past, but I've certainly never written them down. There are only a few things that I actually write down, and most of them have to do with her, so, like I said, new territory. I would like that add that that last stat isn't entirely my fault. My Greek professor (who also taught a number of other classes I took) told us not to take notes but just remember, which I did for the most part. As an aside, the business world isn't that conducive to "just remembering". I found that out.
Ahem. *Trumpet Blast*. Here are the ways that I hope to improve this year:
Shipping
Seth Godin talks about this all the time, which means it's a good idea. Seriously though, the most important part of any idea is actually making it happen. My head is constantly full of ideas, but there are only a few things that I haven't left half-done or half-engaged during the course of my life. I just lose interest, which is often just another phrase for "I'm lazy". I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins, where personal laziness ends and being in the wrong line of work begins, but I want to get better at pulling good ideas out of my head and into reality, into a state of being. I don't just mean in my work either.
Money/Bling
I'm not very good at budgeting/saving. There are various reasons for my wanting to improve this, and while they are far from unimportant, they will be given the luxury that so many of us ought to treasure more than we do: anonymity. I've set for myself a $50/week budget. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'm going to try. The thing about New Year's resolutions is that people usually give up when they fail the first or second or third time, which has never made any sense to me because they should be going after things that are actually helping them grow and mature, things that actually improve them, and if they are, setbacks can take on a cathartic property. She would like/laugh at that sentence. I've wondered before if all relationship wisdom could be boiled down to needing to find someone who cares about sentence structure and expression as much as you do. I'm glad it can't. The cycle of failure/assessment/struggle-to-improve is not only a human approach, it is THE human approach to anything. Imperfection breeds progress. At least when it comes to budgets. So back to the real world, all that to say, it will be hard to get myself down to $50 a week, but I'm going to try. My most recent, and most permanent, abandonment of cigarettes will certainly aid in this quest. Mark Twain once said "Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world to do. I should know, I've done it a thousand times". That quote always makes me laugh.
The Rest
I'm basically already tired of thinking of categories, so the rest will be Faulknerian. That was a literary reference that is intended to make you think I'm smarter than I am. Eat it up. Please. For my sake.
I want to get better at focusing on the aspects of work that suck the most. I'm so good at putting off the painful, ugly assignments that I get for work and, instead, crushing all of the more enjoyable stuff. That needs to change. Not really much else I can say about that.
Ok, I'm tired of reading this and you're tired of writing it, or is it the other way around? Either way, that's enough for now.
2011 is going to be a really big year for me, and I'm thrilled. Actually, I'm Tyler. If you got that, I'm sorry, I've looked but I don't think there's a cure for people like us. Take care, and as fuel for your New Year, I'll leave you with the send off I left my college class with, which apparently made it to our graduation video despite my rather altered state:
be brief, and be brilliant.
Ahem. *Trumpet Blast*. Here are the ways that I hope to improve this year:
Shipping
Seth Godin talks about this all the time, which means it's a good idea. Seriously though, the most important part of any idea is actually making it happen. My head is constantly full of ideas, but there are only a few things that I haven't left half-done or half-engaged during the course of my life. I just lose interest, which is often just another phrase for "I'm lazy". I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins, where personal laziness ends and being in the wrong line of work begins, but I want to get better at pulling good ideas out of my head and into reality, into a state of being. I don't just mean in my work either.
Money/Bling
I'm not very good at budgeting/saving. There are various reasons for my wanting to improve this, and while they are far from unimportant, they will be given the luxury that so many of us ought to treasure more than we do: anonymity. I've set for myself a $50/week budget. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'm going to try. The thing about New Year's resolutions is that people usually give up when they fail the first or second or third time, which has never made any sense to me because they should be going after things that are actually helping them grow and mature, things that actually improve them, and if they are, setbacks can take on a cathartic property. She would like/laugh at that sentence. I've wondered before if all relationship wisdom could be boiled down to needing to find someone who cares about sentence structure and expression as much as you do. I'm glad it can't. The cycle of failure/assessment/struggle-to-improve is not only a human approach, it is THE human approach to anything. Imperfection breeds progress. At least when it comes to budgets. So back to the real world, all that to say, it will be hard to get myself down to $50 a week, but I'm going to try. My most recent, and most permanent, abandonment of cigarettes will certainly aid in this quest. Mark Twain once said "Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world to do. I should know, I've done it a thousand times". That quote always makes me laugh.
The Rest
I'm basically already tired of thinking of categories, so the rest will be Faulknerian. That was a literary reference that is intended to make you think I'm smarter than I am. Eat it up. Please. For my sake.
I want to get better at focusing on the aspects of work that suck the most. I'm so good at putting off the painful, ugly assignments that I get for work and, instead, crushing all of the more enjoyable stuff. That needs to change. Not really much else I can say about that.
Ok, I'm tired of reading this and you're tired of writing it, or is it the other way around? Either way, that's enough for now.
2011 is going to be a really big year for me, and I'm thrilled. Actually, I'm Tyler. If you got that, I'm sorry, I've looked but I don't think there's a cure for people like us. Take care, and as fuel for your New Year, I'll leave you with the send off I left my college class with, which apparently made it to our graduation video despite my rather altered state:
be brief, and be brilliant.
Friday, December 24, 2010
tonight
I miss her. It's always hard to write about her because of who she is and how I feel about her, but it's especially hard tonight. My heart is heavy with her wine, and it isn't in the talking mood.
She means more to me than I know how to write, more than I may ever know how to write, and her ache spills over my heart's mountains and suspends between it's trees.
Tonight, I'm just me drunk with her.
She means more to me than I know how to write, more than I may ever know how to write, and her ache spills over my heart's mountains and suspends between it's trees.
Tonight, I'm just me drunk with her.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
more
There are moments that make you word-scarce, leaving you not a dollar short, but a penny short, of the phrase that would pull your heart closer to the surface so that someone else could see it. Maybe we all spend our whole lives trying to pull our hearts closer to the surface so that anyone, even if it's only ourselves, can see it better.
The only real difference between a great writer, a mediocre writer, and a shitty writer is that great writers have the exact change for that phrase, while the rest of us are left short changed and shuffling our feet in embarrassment. I'm a mediocre writer, and that's usually more infuriating than being a shitty writer because being a penny short is always more obnoxious than being a dollar short, which you know if you pay attention to what goes through your mind at times like that. There is a discipline to art, and that discipline is learning to be unsatisfied, which sounds quite nice to just about everyone, including me, until we learn that being unsatisfied is a bit more consuming and intensive than we had hoped. It is a discipline, after all.
The difference between words and people is that words aren't people. People are like words though. She is, and she's the kind of word that is always meaning more and more and more, absorbing your thoughts and soaking into and through fears until all you can say is her. You spend a long time trying to say her in ways that get closer to what she means, and there you are, always a penny short, trying to get it all out, shuffling your feet not out of embarrassment but out of dissatisfaction because she wasn't said in the best way, and then you're off, trying again.
Find someone who doesn't stop meaning more, and whom you can't stop wanting to say like they ought to be said.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The only real difference between a great writer, a mediocre writer, and a shitty writer is that great writers have the exact change for that phrase, while the rest of us are left short changed and shuffling our feet in embarrassment. I'm a mediocre writer, and that's usually more infuriating than being a shitty writer because being a penny short is always more obnoxious than being a dollar short, which you know if you pay attention to what goes through your mind at times like that. There is a discipline to art, and that discipline is learning to be unsatisfied, which sounds quite nice to just about everyone, including me, until we learn that being unsatisfied is a bit more consuming and intensive than we had hoped. It is a discipline, after all.
The difference between words and people is that words aren't people. People are like words though. She is, and she's the kind of word that is always meaning more and more and more, absorbing your thoughts and soaking into and through fears until all you can say is her. You spend a long time trying to say her in ways that get closer to what she means, and there you are, always a penny short, trying to get it all out, shuffling your feet not out of embarrassment but out of dissatisfaction because she wasn't said in the best way, and then you're off, trying again.
Find someone who doesn't stop meaning more, and whom you can't stop wanting to say like they ought to be said.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, December 11, 2010
slow turn
The real depth of the way things are is something you spend you're whole life sounding. If you know me, and it isn't hard to know me because I'm pretty simple, you might know that that word sounding is a play on words when I talk about trying to understand the depth of things because I love music. Music is something that I couldn't get away from even if I wanted to. I was driving in Richmond today and there were some of those skinny metal towers with lights on them that blink, and anyways the important part is that they were blinking at different times (I think two were blinking their blinks in their usual way and the third was blinking on the downbeat) and the rhythm bothered me. Not an angry bother, just a "please turn the lights down in this room a bit, my eyes are hurting" kind of bother. There isn't much in my life that isn't associated in some way with music, and I'm grateful for that.
I'm grateful for a lot of things. I'm not very wise, and my friends and family know that, but I'm grateful that I'm a little bit wiser than I used to be because I haven't always been in the best waters and most of the time I was churning up those waters, though I have been under the weight of a few things that I didn't create or invent. Creation and invention are different things, that's something you should know. Another thing that I learned yesterday when I was outside was that squirrels don't run like dogs or cheetahs, they spring off of their back legs and just bounce on their front legs. Watch them sometime. Some science someone might respond and say that squirrels do run like cheetahs, and that's fine, I'm often wrong.
One thing I learned about myself over the last couple weeks is that I don't understand as much as I think I do. I don't mean about any certain thing, I just mean in the general way, like when you remember that time you told your parents in high school that you hated them because you weren't allowed to go to a party or some such thing because they wanted "family time", and then you grow up some and you realize that family time is a hell of a lot more important than whether you get to go to every social thing that ever happens. Anyways, the things is, the reason for holiness dawned on me over the last couple of weeks. I know that it did, because I did some marginally stupid things (not the kind of bad things you write down in a book or try not to watch in a movie, the kind of bad things you bring up at care group so that people have a sense of awe and wonder at your wildness. They probably don't have either of those things after hearing about it, but you hope that they do and so you say it, and you say it in a "oh, if only the Lord could get a hold of ME" kind of way. Sorry, that's just how I've been in the past.) and I was grieved by them. I mean honestly saddened. My parents just read that and rejoiced a little bit, as well they should. Anyway, holiness is like maturing which is like seeing the real value of things. I'm starting to think that sin is wrong in some ways because it steals the value that things are supposed to have, like letting the air out of a balloon a little at a time until it's not so much of a balloon anymore.
And that's the infuriating thing about grace, and why grace is the most uncomfortable thing about God when you think about it. I agree, it is maddening at times that God sends people to hell, I'm not hiding from that. But the more I learn about myself, the more I'm surprised that He doesn't send everyone to hell. I mean, I'm glad also, for the record, but the weight of grace is something else, I swear. I've asked God to strike me with lightning a number of times, including in the last few weeks, and He never does. (Ok you atheists, this is your moment to shout that He hasn't struck me because He isn't there. Ok, you're moment is over. This is my blog after all.) There are people who probably wish I'd been struck by lightning, and if any of you reading this are numbered amongst them, I'll be the first to admit that I've deserved that early and often. Instead, God brings us to His table and dresses us in his finest clothes at the very moment we wish He would order 30 lashes. 31 would be a bit harsh of course, but 30 is something we could suffer through and brag about.
Maybe God designed grace so that we can't brag about anything. And also so that we could know Him and keep on knowing Him.
I'm not sure about so many things as I used to be sure about, but I know more and more how much I care for those I really care for, and that I don't deserve to be cared for. Maybe on my tombstone, if I have one, I will ask that they write "more than anything, he was astonished by grace".
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I'm grateful for a lot of things. I'm not very wise, and my friends and family know that, but I'm grateful that I'm a little bit wiser than I used to be because I haven't always been in the best waters and most of the time I was churning up those waters, though I have been under the weight of a few things that I didn't create or invent. Creation and invention are different things, that's something you should know. Another thing that I learned yesterday when I was outside was that squirrels don't run like dogs or cheetahs, they spring off of their back legs and just bounce on their front legs. Watch them sometime. Some science someone might respond and say that squirrels do run like cheetahs, and that's fine, I'm often wrong.
One thing I learned about myself over the last couple weeks is that I don't understand as much as I think I do. I don't mean about any certain thing, I just mean in the general way, like when you remember that time you told your parents in high school that you hated them because you weren't allowed to go to a party or some such thing because they wanted "family time", and then you grow up some and you realize that family time is a hell of a lot more important than whether you get to go to every social thing that ever happens. Anyways, the things is, the reason for holiness dawned on me over the last couple of weeks. I know that it did, because I did some marginally stupid things (not the kind of bad things you write down in a book or try not to watch in a movie, the kind of bad things you bring up at care group so that people have a sense of awe and wonder at your wildness. They probably don't have either of those things after hearing about it, but you hope that they do and so you say it, and you say it in a "oh, if only the Lord could get a hold of ME" kind of way. Sorry, that's just how I've been in the past.) and I was grieved by them. I mean honestly saddened. My parents just read that and rejoiced a little bit, as well they should. Anyway, holiness is like maturing which is like seeing the real value of things. I'm starting to think that sin is wrong in some ways because it steals the value that things are supposed to have, like letting the air out of a balloon a little at a time until it's not so much of a balloon anymore.
And that's the infuriating thing about grace, and why grace is the most uncomfortable thing about God when you think about it. I agree, it is maddening at times that God sends people to hell, I'm not hiding from that. But the more I learn about myself, the more I'm surprised that He doesn't send everyone to hell. I mean, I'm glad also, for the record, but the weight of grace is something else, I swear. I've asked God to strike me with lightning a number of times, including in the last few weeks, and He never does. (Ok you atheists, this is your moment to shout that He hasn't struck me because He isn't there. Ok, you're moment is over. This is my blog after all.) There are people who probably wish I'd been struck by lightning, and if any of you reading this are numbered amongst them, I'll be the first to admit that I've deserved that early and often. Instead, God brings us to His table and dresses us in his finest clothes at the very moment we wish He would order 30 lashes. 31 would be a bit harsh of course, but 30 is something we could suffer through and brag about.
Maybe God designed grace so that we can't brag about anything. And also so that we could know Him and keep on knowing Him.
I'm not sure about so many things as I used to be sure about, but I know more and more how much I care for those I really care for, and that I don't deserve to be cared for. Maybe on my tombstone, if I have one, I will ask that they write "more than anything, he was astonished by grace".
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, December 5, 2010
hereafter
this is a short post about how there's always something to fix. it hurts my head to think of all the ways that i still need to grow and mature and be less of an idiot, and the thing is, it's not so i can feel better about myself and be able to a shoot a short film about my heart and mind where everyone is smiling. it's because i'm worn out with the clamor for more more more more more more more more more more that my mind makes. i'm tired of talking to God about how serious i am this time, because even by saying that i've already missed the point. i'm tired of not trusting God enough to let Him all the way inside my heart and mind. i'm tired of being part fool part less fool.
the shift from holiness-as-burden to holiness-as-rescue has taken a long time in my heart, and it has a ways to go still.
i'd be lying if i didn't say that i wish times like this, times of pick-yourself-up-off-your-ass-and-listen, were the part of the film near the end where I throw my duffle bag in the back of the truck and drive off-screen to the voice of an old british guy talking about how from that time on, things were never the same for Tyler and were always better.
too bad, huh?
i guess what i mean is, there is no sweet-hereafter until heaven.
the shift from holiness-as-burden to holiness-as-rescue has taken a long time in my heart, and it has a ways to go still.
i'd be lying if i didn't say that i wish times like this, times of pick-yourself-up-off-your-ass-and-listen, were the part of the film near the end where I throw my duffle bag in the back of the truck and drive off-screen to the voice of an old british guy talking about how from that time on, things were never the same for Tyler and were always better.
too bad, huh?
i guess what i mean is, there is no sweet-hereafter until heaven.
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