Sunday, December 19, 2010

Now in Portland

Since I am now in a new environment, I've started blogging about it here:
http://emicpdx.blogspot.com/

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Thursday, May 13, 2010

hafiz

We Might Have To
Medicate You

Resist your temptation to lie
By speaking of separation from God,

Otherwise,
We might have to medicate
You.

In the ocean
A lot goes on beneath your eyes.

Listen,
They have clinics there too
For the insane
Who persist in saying things like:

"I am independent from the
Sea,

God is not always around

Gently
Pressing against
My body."

From: 'The Gift'
                                                                                                                         Translated by Daniel Ladinsky


Friday, April 9, 2010

The more i think critically, the easier it is to follow my heart

-Ryan

I can write my life but you can only read about it.

-Ryan

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

For the yogurt

...and the glory.

Shopping

We all think the same things, and then react differently.

-Ryan

Saturday, January 16, 2010

30, 2010, 3600000; age, year, yen. It's also the year of the Tiger. I wish it was the year of the Lion, but I will settle for a sweet sweet T-shirt I bought in Thailand with a giant Lion's head on BOTH sides (same picture). I sat a lot while traveling in Thailand, and when I got home I stretched myself into a very sore pelvis/hip. I could barely move for three days. I mean really, it hurt to move. I now feel an empathetic connection to people who take life slower because of injuries or handicaps. Who would want to go back across the room for their cellphone when every step causes distress? The best laid plans of mice and men, how many are hatched with the economy of pain avoidance in the subconscious mind?
I feel I should post more words to this blog. Seems a kind of malaise keeps me from doing so. A rhetorical confusion is the best excuse I can come up with. My discoveries over the past two years seem so obvious now, I feel a little ashamed to write about them, or perhaps they are so obvious it would take too long to write about them. It seems almost baffling to me that my education lacked certain elements. Like maybe somebody saying “ummm...exactly what connections do the words in your head have with your daily existence?”
I just read an article about how much debt countries are accruing to get through the Great Recession. Internet apprised me of this. I had never thought before about countries defaulting on their loans, but it happened quite a few times on this nifty bar graph they drew. So if you are a keen investor, you can make a lot of money shorting a country. You know, buying options and betting that the nation will have to borrow a lot of money at a high interest rate in a short amount of time. If you are on the list for those government bonds, then you are going to make a wad. Shorting an entire economy; phenomenal. It is also cool how other nations may be compelled to borrow money in dollars, which they lack the authority to print more of. I never thought about our position as printer of the world’s money. How great is that for us? But also, 45% of our public debt is held by foreign countries. Anyway, who knows what the Federal Reserve is doing about this, because Congress doesn't get to audit the Federal Reserve.
My family sent me a nice card that quotes Emily Dickinson: "I dwell in possibilities." The one thing I know about Emily is that she lived most of her life as a shut-in, away from the outside world. I love the possible, but I feel this year will be about making the possible, probable. To actualize I suppose I must choose a possibility and go forth with it, not really knowing what will happen. I have been so obsessed with wanting the penultimate surety, I have many times stifled the reality, tempered presence with that feeling of “is this right? Am I doing this right?” I guess I must now admit the script is lost, and the curtain of 2010 is rising.