About Face

I would not blame this guy one bit if he was a little peeved right now

Do you know what potentially could be a super annoying thing?  Imagine this:  you move back home for a couple weeks after surviving another year of college.  You are ready to get a little work done, but mostly relax for a spell and kick it with the peeps.  Of course you have peeps, and of course you call them peeps, because that is just the kind of person you are.  And you "kick it" with people.  Got it?  Okey doke.  Now imagine that you also have a lot to get done and really need to use your time off from school well if you have any hope of getting in to medical school so that you can become a doctor.  Otherwise you might have to be a dentist.

Just kidding, Tyler.  Oh, and good job on graduating from dental school.  That was the only place you got accepted, right?

So now imagine that your little "vaycay" (also, never call it that, that sounds ridiculous) is over and you've convinced yourself that going back up north is going to be a good thing, because even though all you've got so far is one measly little interview with the sketchiest company ever created, you'll be able to find a good job, maybe take a phlebotomy course, and finally start taking your first baby steps towards your goals.

Good.

Now imagine that it's your first day back in Salt Lake, and you're actually a little bit excited because there are some stellar concerts coming up, and the weather is great, and the city is wide open with possibility.  You're having a good time with some friends that are sure nice to have around while you're up there, and do make being in SLC a much better experience.  And then imagine you find out that you actually have to move back home for the summer.

Wouldn't that be a little bit annoying?  Your first day back?  I mean you were starting, or at least planning on starting, to figure things out.  And then you have to pack up everything again and head home, just like that.  Pretty much a guaranteed bummer, right?

Wrong!

Because sometimes the reason you have to move back is because you get a text from Bob Cope offering you the exact job that you sometimes dreamed about having for the summer where you will get all kinds of experience working as a medical assistant (even though a medical assistant you are not.)

That is kind of what happened to me and kind of why I'm pretty darn excited for this summer and for how it is turning out.  I just wanted you to feel it too.

A Cautionary Tale

Now that the the blogosphere is buzzing about my new blog (I've had more than 6 visitors in the last month!) I figure I had best not commit the greatest sin any green blogger can commit.  Having recently posted a post about the fact that I will be blogging, it is important, nay, crucial that I post a new entry to give meaning to the existence of this blog soon, otherwise my blog runs the risk of being one of those blogs that starts with a promise of "frequent updates" and "timely posts" only to fall out of orbit, drift aimlessly through the void, and finally join its kind in a dark, ever growing mass that will inevitably implode under its own weight, forming a dark hole from which nothing but the occasional new cat photo or summer time playlist could ever escape.  No, we don't want that.

Just call me the platinum Midas

So, you know how sometimes you have a dream?  Not like the dreams that you have at night, though I'm sure you've had some doozies.  Please, tell me about them.  But some other time, because now I want to talk about real dreams.  The dreams that make you wake up every day and push yourself a little harder.  Or even the dreams that make you wish really, really hard that something, usually something amazing, will happen to you and you'll finally have everything you need/want/could hope for.  Well, I had a dream once.  It was a simple dream, one that I knew would require hard work, practice, dedication, trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thriftiness, bravery, cleanliness, and reverence.  Now, I'm no eagle scout so this was a tall order for me.  You've probably already guessed that I wanted to be in the Platinum League in Starcraft II.

Well, fast forward to a couple of days ago.  I finally accomplished this goal with the help of my brilliant younger brother, Lincoln.  Our 2v2 team decimated any foolhardy challengers that would dare, erm, challenge us.  We quickly shot through the ranks and found ourselves at the top of the universe, league wise.  Of course, we weren't yet in the diamond league, but it is good to be realistic with your dreams.

Like King Midas.  He had a simple dream as well.  All he wanted was to be able to make every single thing he touch turn to gold.  And through hard work and perseverance he achieved that goal.  But something terrible befell this humble man.  He soon found he would starve to death if everything he touched turned to gold, so he did what any man would do.  He died rich and fulfilled.  Just kidding.  He saw the error of his ways and realized that sometimes we need to be careful what we wish for.

Well, I hate to compare myself to a rich and powerful king (you're right, the comparison is apt) but I experienced practically the exact same thing.  Now that we made it to the platinum league, we haven't won a single game.  Everyone is SO MUCH BETTER than us.  It is like every time I'm about to put the food of victory into my mouth, it becomes the solid gold chunk of failure.  As humiliating as it is, it was a lot more fun being in the bronze league, where wins flow like liquid not turned to gold.  Moral of the story, update your blogs lest we be sucked into a giant black hole.

I'm Totally Blogging!

I once felt special because some friends went out of their way to tell me that I should totally start blogging.  In fact, I think they actually said the word "totally."  I think that is probably why I am not blogging.  (Well, I guess I am right now, but not really.  It's complicated.)  It isn't because they want me to.  Actually, to say they want me to is also a bit of an over simplification.  I can probably say that as this moment they could care less whether I'm blogging or not (am I?) but for at least one point in time, the thought crossed their minds that it would be nice if I had a blog.  And that isn't why I don't blog.  It is the fact that they said "totally" (which, come to think of it, they probably didn't actually say...) Because I can't do this totally.

I started this blog and started designing it with the wonderfully intuitive Blogger, and got super tired of it super quick.  So I figured I would write a post.  My post ended up being pretty preachy, which I hate.  But it isn't really really surprising, as I am prone to lapse into preachiness whenever I start putting words together, something I remembered today as I read a letter I sent home to my little brother while I was on my mission.  Worst part?  It was his birthday letter.  I just like to think of him with the family, tearing open all of his awesome presents from all of the awesome people who love him.  When he finally gets to mine, he rips off the paper with a gleam of excitement at the corner of his eye, and the gleam dies.  He forces a smile onto his face, and quickly puts the letter aside, trying to push on to the better presents from people who know how to give a birthday present.  

My mom asks "What did Jordan get you?"

He replies, "A sermon..."

Don't worry, I made up for it the next year by not doing anything for his birthday besides thinking I should do something cool for it.  That was probably an improvement.

My ability to start things and then never finish them is unparalleled.  It is great that I finished my mission.  I could totally see myself having woken up some morning, getting in the car, driving home, and walking in the front door to be greeted by my horrified family, only to think "Oh yeah, I'm still a missionary.  Oops."  It's not like I set out to not finish things, it usually just happens that way.  Good thing I've chosen a path in medicine, right?

And that was the only post I've done.  One preachy little post, two and a half months ago.  After that I must have lost interest and gone on to doing other things that I deemed more important.  I couldn't tell you what any of those things were.  But I can tell you that that isn't "totally" blogging.  That is starting a blog and then never touching it again.  Hardly a cardinal sin, but certainly not what my friends had in mind (even if they didn't say "totally,"  I think it was the message they were trying to convey.)  Why am I writing right now?  Because I fell asleep at 6:30 on a Sunday evening and woke up at 10.

Google tells me this is the picture I want for my blog.  I dare you to say otherwise.

Oh yeah, another reason why I'm not very good at this blogging thing:  I forgot to, you know, tell anyone I was blogging.  Oops.

Someday, in the future, I think that we will see things differently.

I was looking at a picture of a friend.  It was a nice picture.  He stood surrounded by the white of fresh snow in the grandeur of Utah's always  impressive mountains with the clear blue skies touching the surrounding snow capped peaks.  The scenery was intensely beautiful in the way that makes you look twice and then look for your camera, which explains the existence of this picture.

I'm a big sucker for those moments of beauty.  I count myself blessed to have lived my life in a place where such moments can be experienced.  I like to hike, but I don't hike slowly.  I like to hike alone at a pace that keeps me ahead of the group so that when I finally do stop to catch my breath I can sit still and be alone.  I'm not sure that I ever truly feel part of it all, no matter how still I sit.  At most I feel like the prodigal son returning from his wayward journey to what once was his home.  I don't step into it assuming to reclaim it, just to perhaps feel what I once felt to some small degree.  Those moments are special when the birds sing their bird songs and the bugs flit about living their bug lives and I sit and watch and feel invited to experience something again or for the first time.

But the world is changing.  It seems what happens inside of us or around us matters almost nothing if it doesn't fit in 140 characters and isn't read by everyone we've ever met.  With enough time on facebook every situation becomes a new status update.  Pictures stop being reminders for ourselves but proof for others of the fact that our life is being lived.  We have never truly arrived at a place until we've checked in on every app in hopes of, God willing, becoming the mayor.

Enough has been written about all of this.  Nothing I am saying is new.  Do I really need to say it?

I don't know.  My friend stood in the picture wearing big aviator glasses as if buffering himself from the raw magnitude of the world around him.  My friend stood staring into his iPhone, framing a shot of his own, experiencing the infinity of world around him through the 9 very manageable centimeters of his screen.  This is how we see the boundless real world: condensed to a specific number of pixels to be pasted around the virtual world.

I am no different.  I am doing the same thing.  If this is the new way to look at things than I am seeing what you are seeing and I guess it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

But maybe tomorrow we can take off the glasses.