What weight must be hidden?

Lately Ive been strongly considering putting it all out there. Letting those who doubt me see everything. Every text, every heart, every "love you", every stupid fucking comment. But I made a promise to keep what was said between us a secret. Am I being a good friend by holding onto a promise that she doesnt appear to be honoring? Shouldn't I continue to lie to everyone so that she can continue to have friends and let her reality be one which she can have a positive sense of self just so that she doesnt go back to cutting again? Should I continue to hold it in and let those most zealous white knighting fools believe me to be evil for the sake of a happier old friend and the memories that once she was sane and we were friends? Perhaps I should bare this. Its better for everyone else right? I think I should, the needs of the many outway the needs of the few right? The team over the self? But are lies and illusions a better thing than truth? Perhaps truth doesnt have intrinsic value anymore, so long as people can hate who they want to hate, feel how and what and when they want to feel. Soldier on Dave. Let time erase this. And for now, sacrifice what you must for the greater good, because while you might not be willing to lie to yourself, you must let others lie to themselves and believe what they want to believe. Perhaps like the RAM thing holding the truth in will net something good for us all.

Be Patient Atlas

Days that start out like today bring out the best in me and make me the saddest.

I ran into Guy while on campus early. We always have deep philosophical discussions and today that discussion focused on meth and the lives it effects.

This reminded me of little Casey. That poor child growing up with parents who are constantly fucked up on meth. His father is always in and out of jail... I want to go up to his mother, slap her in the face and point her to her children. LOOK AT THEM YOU SON OF A BITCH!

It broke my heart the last time I played catch with Casey. He clearly never did it before, his father doesnt pay attention to his kids. The child was so happy to toss a little foam football around. There was a glee in his eyes that he clearly had never known before. I want to call CSD, but I know that I shouldnt... his mother is pregnant again and taking that child from his parents would be even more psychologically damaging to him and probably push the mother into further drug use during her pregnancy. He deserves a world that would protect him and give him a stable life, but the foster care system is just legal human trafficking, he wouldnt come out any better from it.

I think about how many children like him must exist out there and I feel so angry, I feel so frustrated. I want to save them. But I can not save them alone. Even my plans to go into teaching to help these kids can only go by so quickly. I feel the weight of all these souls on my back and all I can do is tell myself to be patient. Be patient, even while they are slipping away, even while some are being lost to the whirlpool of the world that will engulf them as soon as they are "adults". These children dont deserve the life they were born into, nor the parents that bore them, nor the system that will chew them up and spit them out.

There are those who wonder why I want to teach when I "dont like kids". To be perfectly clear, I dont do well with toddlers, crying and diaper changing. But I know what its like to grow up with a high level of dysfunction. I am one of the lucky ones who recognized those who could teach me the skillsets to deprogram that dysfunction. And my interest in teaching is both the love of history and the passion to do what I see as a way to save lives, not necessarily lives in the sense of life or death but rather life in the sense of ones ability to have a life that is not weighted down by what they were given.

Being patient has become so much harder lately. Ive been reading atlas shrugged, and while I find 90% of its stances totally reprehensible, it has imbued me with the realization and the ability to push past peoples bullshit and get what I want done by simply being a person who does things himself. This makes working with a slow system like getting through school exceptionally frustrating, but without this system I would have no way and little knowledge to offer. I have to focus on building up my own self so that I can have more to offer.

Be patient... even while I cant be there for everyone now, I know that there are others like me who already carry the burden. I will join your ranks soon Atlas' of the world, and we will hold this world together.

Still lack gracefulness

Professor: How old are you? 28? 30?

Me: 24

Professor looks me straight in the eyes: You are a wise man.

Me, O_O : ugh.. guh.. um... hm... thank you...

If I wasn't such a fool for flattery I would have liked to ask what he based that observation on; but a renowned economist probably has a pretty good eye for these things.

A personal step

I have found that I am my own biggest stumbling block. I know what I want, its right in front of me, but some combination of cowardice and ethics gets in my way. Time to put a stop to that.

This Will Not Be My Life!

This morning I went over to my parents house after dropping Briita off at work. I had a long discussion with my dad as to where the world is going, where it is now and how it used to be. We talked about everything from aspirations to gravestones in cemeteries. Mostly we talked about family systems. I cant help but look at my parents and see myself in them. This scares me... I'm living off unemployment, foodstamps, and my girlfriend. My parents are in similar dire straights. They have a government contract, but they cant get the credit to buy the parts for it. They seem to rarely eat and they dont know how they will get around to retireing. Here I am nearly two months later and it feels like this is it. It feels like I might spend forever here looking for work. Yet with school so close no one will hire someone who is going to leave in January. Still, January seems so far away. Somehow I have to make it through this christmas season, I feel so pathetic... Im 23, I am living away from home and I still feel like a kid who cant buy christmas gifts for people. God I hate this...
All this is really reafirming my plans... because I wont live this life... I wont get used to this... I have to finish school because I am still only 23, there is a lot of world to see, and there are venues for me to get there. I just have to keep chasing this bus, I know it will stop for me in two years.

Come with me if you want adventure

I added some friends of mine to facebook a little while ago, and they were looking through my pictures and where amazed. They wanted to know how long I was in the military and where I went off to on an indiana jones adventure.

I told them right away of course that it was all just airsoft

but there was something about that, that got me thinking

We dont live in movies, we dont always get to live lives that are amazing. A lot of people live in a world where their day to day drudgery is their lives, and the weekends might be a break where they wait until they start more day to day stuff. But I live a life that a lot of people dream about, that a lot of people want to have. I get to go out and lead a group of great friends out on a field and have a fun time. I have pictures and stories of rediculous adventures that can only exist in something make believe like movies or airsoft. And all this in a wierd way helped remind me a little bit of the kind of person I am... I am the kind of person that people want to have lead them, I am the kind of friend that people trust, I am the kind of person that takes people out of their day to day and takes them on adventures (in airsoft or otherwise). And in that I can at least accept a small amount of self worth. There is still a lot for me to chew threw, but it was a refreshing feeling.

Theres nothing more important to me than saving people. Whether its from themselves, their past, their future or from their day to day drudgery. Thats why I want to be a teacher.

Atlas

Wow, here I am again feeling totally overwhelmed. Ive got a history paper thats been in the works for a long time and I just have not been able to get any work done on. Being unable to find enough resources I decided to start over with a subject I could get more material on. That being said its 4-7 pages and its due Thursday. Did I mention I have to do all the build up assignments to the paper now that Ive changed my subject? That means I need to do a subject paragraph, a bibliography, and a thesis and outline. Which I suppose will sort of make itself if I ever finish the paper.

I havent been able to force myself to get up and get to class at all lately which has shown itself in my physical geology class. Right now I'm barely maintaining a C. Im worried it will drastically effect my HST class too because he does take roll and I havent been able to drag myself out of bed in the mornings.

My car is being shitty, shouldnt be that bad, just a $75 fix... hopefully.

I just got handed the position of co-director, thats what Im calling it for now, with two others in my airsoft team while abe is away in Japan for the next 9-12 months. At first I was hesitant because its a lot of responsibility to take on, but the more I think about it the more I really want it. This team has meant a lot to me the last three or four years, it has been here for me and helped me out in tough situations and for that I want to be able to lead it to something great.

I was at one point playing three different D&D campaigns and when two of them ended I swore to myself that I would never do that many because it took way too much time away from homework... well now I am only playing in one... but I am DMing two. My sacrifices have unfortunately been effecting my ability to DM effective campaigns. Note to self or others, dont DM multiple games unless you have a ton of time to put into making them good.

Ive been doing a lot of soul searching lately to try to figure out this Briita thing. So far Ive managed to confuse myself more and I kind of hate the direction I see myself going; but I am slowly feeling differently about it.

Im currently putting together a beach trip and figuring out all the logistics has been a huge pain in the ass.

Ive got a shit ton on my plate right now, Ive just got to chew threw the time sensitive stuff and push my way to the other side. Thats what Im good at, when things get heavy I put my foot down and push back.